Quarter Staffs

[SwiftyWillownall]

Hey everyone. Just had a quick question. I heard that quarter staffs are treated like double-sided weapons now. I'm a little confused to this change, and I don't know much about normal double sided weapons to begin with.

I noticed that the quarter-staffs are treated as if you were dual wielding on your character sheet, rather than you having one weapon with two attacks. How does this effect everything in regards to feats and spells? Are you treated as dual-wielding or wielding a double-headed weapon?

[Knight Of Pentacles]

Exactly the same as using a double axe or double sword.

[el groso]

Quarterstaves are a simple weapon that is treated exactly like double weapons. The damage is smaller on the off hand (1d3 I think) and it gets you -2/-2 Ab at best. However, there are several quarterstaff drops with properties like free Ambidex and Two weapon fighting, which makes it more feasible. All and all, it is much more stylish than vanilla NWN being a double weapon, and way less effective if you aim for AB, but in order to get the mighty -2/-2 AB, you need the feats Ambidexterity and two weapon fighting. Unless the item itself comes with said feats (which sometimes is the case).

[DryDepths]

wierd, when I wield a qstaff it's 1d6/1d6 it seems to vary for some reason.

[Ebok]

Its 1d6/1d3, I assure you.

[DryDepths]

My fighter says it's 1d6/1d6

Edit: Also 1d6/1d6 on my monk

[Knight Of Pentacles]

I thought it was 1d6+str modifier/1d6 str modifier divided in half ?

[TheCryingMan]

What KoP says is obviously true. Shame on the rest of you!

[el groso]

They might have changed the base dmg of Quartertaves (independent of the Str bonus, which yes, for double weapons is half on the off hand) to 1D6 / 1D6. There's also the chance it shows on Character Sheet 1d6 / 1d6 and actually only delivers 1d6 / 1d3. You'll need a Sherlock Holmes to find out, if such information is really important for you.

[DryDepths]

It originally said 1d6/1d3 on sheets so i'm inclined to believe they fixed it on an update.

[Decimate_The_Weak]

The base damage of a quarterstaff is d6/d3. The off-hand damage is registered as unarmed, meaning that, if a monk uses a quarterstaff at level 8, his damage output will be d6/d10 and so on and so forth.

[Pandip]

Questions of damage dice aside, the NWN wiki does a pretty thorough job of explaining the game's mechanics. Essentially, a double-weapon works the exact same way dual-wielding would, with the exception that your offhand is automatically considered a light weapon (you get less penalties for dual-wielding) and adds only half of your strength modifier in damage, rounded down.

The main advantage to dual-wielding is to gain an extra attack per round at your maximum attack bonus. In exchange, you take penalties to all of your attacks. You still need ambidexterity and two-weapon fighting in order to be effective at using a double-weapon. With ambidexterity, two-weapon fighting, and a light weapon in your offhand, your penalties are minimized to -2/-2. A level 5 fighter with no strength modifier would have +3/+3 for his attacks, while a level 6 fighter with no strength modifier would have +4/-1/+4.

Double-weapons only require one feat to focus/specialize in, but the double-axe and double-sword need exotic weapon proficiency to use.