Arcane Paladin

Illithad, touche. My "attack" on optimization was poorly elaborated. I should have kept it to min-maxing. In a sense we all try to optimize by making our chars the best that they can be. You proved me wrong.

I was just curious if there is any advantage to using a single handed weapon, no shield? If not, I understand, I will just make my character as such. Now I know that it is not a very popular concept but indulge me for a moment if you would. One of favorite concepts for an rpg char is the swordsman. A hero so skilled with his blade that he can go toe to toe with the flurry of a duel wielding berzerker, the brute force of greataxe swinging warrior, or the seemingly impenetrable defense of a sword and board tank. Why not be able to make that quintessential hero from books that only had to rely on his skill with a blade? Few examples off the top of my head: Tanis, Strider, Robin Hood, Tyrael, Madmartigan. Few games have implemented this, usually forcing dexterous characters down the dual wield road. The few I can think of is: Baldur's Gate 2, FF tactics, and the Dark Souls games. There are a few ways to implement a minor bonus. First and foremost, BG2 with a type of armor/deflect bonus. Perhaps an activated bonus, though balancing could be an issue. Lastly, like final fantasy tactics, a slight bonus to damage from using two hands on your one handed weapon. I know many people will say just use a shield or two weapons but looking for something else Again, if no type of bonus, no big deal. I will make my swordsman anyways. Thank you for bearing with my poor grammar and sentence/paragraph structure.

The best way I can think of to defend RtWP is to equate it to sports RT: Soccer or Hockey Turn based: Baseball RtWP: Football As far your optimizing issue, in my opinion, it ruins the game. I happen to think that min-maxing has no place in RPGs. It takes the roleplay out of it. Part of the excitement, for me, is to take a least optimal race/class combo and try my damnest to succeed if not thrive. Now, to each their own. If you try and optimize everything, go for broke but I think you implied that large numbers of gamers embrace this approach. That maybe true, but not in this genre from what I've seen(ex: hardcore one life(self imposed) no reloads) as many IE game players purposefully do things that aren't optimal.