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Dual Wield. The best defense is a good offense!

6 (7.2%)

Sword and Board. I'd like to actually survive the battle.

39 (47%)

Twin Shields. My defense is my offense!

4 (4.8%)

Why not both? I carry a weapon and shield in each hand.

14 (16.9%)

Ranged weapons. Sure, I suck at close combat. Too bad you'll never reach me.

3 (3.6%)

Who needs weapons when I have FISTS OF FURY!!!

17 (20.5%)

Total Members Voted: 82

[StagnantSoul]

Definite yay!
I, at fist, stuck to the traditional sword and shield, axe and shield, spear and shield, etc. adventurer. But then I somehow equipped an iron longsword in my other hand. Being an accomplished swordsman, I could kill a guy pretty fast with one. So instead of in the middle of a fight getting my shield out, I decided to just run with what just happened. I managed to cut a goblin in half, and stab into another's brain at the same time. Killed the rest of the goblins in a similar manner, cutting off a single leg from two at a time in one turn. Since my armor skill was already rather high, my dodger was competent, and I was parrying often,  I managed to kill off a whole group of bandits myself after my companions had been killed by the bowmen before we got the them. So I always duel wield now. My common setup is an iron pick and whip. This basically lets you kill anything and everything that feels pain effortlessly, and some that don't. I'm not that hurt really. Just a few missing teeth.

[TacoSundae84]

I've been using dual wield longswords a lot. I regularly switch between that and a greatsword depending on my mood. Everyone keeps saying there's a penalty on the to-hit with dual wielding, but I haven't noticed it at all. The only time I miss is when they sometimes jump away from the second swing if it's a skilled enemy, which works out great for me -- the fist hit lands, the second hit makes them jump back and they don't get to take a swing at me, then wait one turn for them to step towards me and do it again. It really shines when fighting a large group of enemies too. It's trivial to take down packs of boogeymen with two iron longswords, just fast attack their necks and you usually kill two of them each turn. As for defense, before 40.x, I always used greatsword, so I don't notice a change in survivability since I always relied on dodge and armor anyway.

I hope the mechanics of this are changed to become more realistic. The offhand weapon should mainly be used for defense with the occasional opportunistic attack if you see an opening for it. Attacking with both weapons at the same time just doesn't make any sense. Doing so should have incredibly severe penalties to power and chance to hit, and completely nullify your ability to dodge. There needs to be something to simulate the upside to having a weapon in your offhand, but I'm not sure how it could be done in the current combat system.