Hold sword: You can't hold this.

[Sephiroto]

I vaguely remember this being discussed before.  But of curiousity, why can some weapons only be wielded in the primary hand.  The 'jagged bone cutlass' is a fairly common weapon.  Its definately not too heavy.  So why couldn't a giant, mul, dwarf, or even a strong human hold some of the larger 'one handed' weapons in their off hand?  If some Byn Lieutenant wants to walk around and hardass things up with two ivory-handled, obsidian edged bastards for instance, why shouldn't they be able to?  Just be cause a certain type of sword can only be held in the primary hand the can't.

[Anonymous]

I thought Zhaira or Xygax or someone said you can feel free to go ahead and typo an item if you think it should be able to be held in both hands.

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

Assuming I understand your complaint, I think it's mainly a coding issue. Let's go with an example...

Let's say you have a weapons with the sdesc: 'the large obsidian scimitar'. It's a big and scary sword, so it's been coded in a way such that you can only hold it in your primary hand. Now, if you're a half giant, you could probably use the measly thing to pick your teeth. Realistically, you should easily be able to hold it in your secondary thing. The thing is, in order to code that in, the item would have to run checks on your strength to see if you could wield it, and if so, where. Sounds decent, but... You'd be  adding checks to every weapon in the game. Do you know how many weapons there are in this Krath-blasted game?

I imagine things are the way they are with weapons to make it easier on the machine and on the poor coders (who we love, by the way, in case I haven't mentioned that recently).

With that said, yeah, it sucks the way things are now. Sucks mightily.

[Faglore]

Why couldn't there just be checks on weapons that are not able to be held, there are far less of these then regular weapons. Or perhaps the code itself could be eliminated for Half-giants, except for a few certain weapons. But then again, I might just be crazy.

[Sephiroto]

Typo?  Thanks.  
Strength shouldn't be a problem.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Forgive me, but I wish to clarify something for myself. Why in the Krath-blasted Pits of Drov could someone not weild a -weapon- in their off hand? In particular, I refer to any sort of sword, knife, or single-handed axe. In fact, no, I refer to any sort of one-handed weapon, period. Of course you will have disadvantages, but the code already checks your strength for any weapon you pick up.

Other than perhaps throwing weapons, any weapon should be able to be used via either hand.

[Anonymous]

I dunno, seems to me that if you could hold it one hand, you could hold it in the other.  Maybe the issue is that its too unwieldy for you to be holding two of the same sword?

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Truthfully, I suspect it a quirk of the old days when Armageddon was still in possession of classes and class/race-restricted items. I suspect it simply an overlooked feature of the code from way back when. Whatever it is, it is unrealistic and it is likely that a great many players would not mind seeing this gone.

Of course, there may be a reason...

[jhunter]

Funny...I typo'd that weapon and one other some time ago...I agree completely. If you can wield it one-handed, then you should be able to wield it in either hand.

[Summer]

I don't see why there would be any requirement to change any of the weapons in the game. All weapons already have a weight attribute, simply change the hold/es command to check the weight attribute of the weapon against the strength of the character. If the ratio is small enough you can hold it.

[mansa]

It's not that.  It's a code/database thing.

Each item needs to be changed seperatly, to give the 'ep' and 'es' flag.

it's a simple change, just adding a flag to an item...but it's the vast unknown items without that flag.

That's why -we- are needed, to keep on typo'ing that mistake

[Anonymous]

I think you guys are overcomplicating this.

From http://www.zalanthas.org/ArmDocs/Community/format.html#objects

The last category is wearflags with a description of: where the item can be held/worn.

Maybe its as simple as some items were never set to be held by the second hand and it doesn't have anything to do with weight code.