Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Help/Tips/Tricks Can the 2 AP Weapon Swap Penalty Be Avoided?

I was thinking of having Sebille (currently a Lone Wolf Scoundrel/Warfare/Poly build) learn some bow skills, but the AP cost for weapon switching gives me pause. Yes, she's a Lone Wolf and an Elf so she does have more AP than most, but I just don't like the fact that it would cost me an attack to switch from crossbow to dual daggers. I read a post that states that swapping weapons while Chameleon Cloak is active allows you to forego the 2 AP penalty. Can anyone confirm or deny this? And if it turns out to be true, is it only true for Chameleon Cloak or are there other skills or circumstances that will work the same way?

Nope, Chameleon Cloak doesn't do that. I don't believe that 2 AP penalty can ever be negated during combat.

Being able to swap weapons during combat might give you a lot of advantages, if you do it right. Being able to do it repeatedly without any kind of penalty is way too convenient. Putting your equipped weapon(s) into your backpack, pulling the new ones out, equipping them - doing all that has to take up *some* of your time. It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

A middle-ground approach should be having two loadouts of weapons per character, costing 1 AP to switch. That's just a suggestion though.

You are a Lone Wolf Elf with Adrenaline. That's 6 starting AP plus 1 from flesh sacrifice and +1 from Adrenaline. You're more than equipped to handle switching weapons.

That's the price you pay for flexibility. Plan your approach so that you have to switch as little as possible.

Right on; I wouldn't want infinite free weapon swapping - that would just make it ridiculously easy to cheese your way through the game. I just read that post about Chameleon Cloak and weapon swap and I thought it was an interesting enough idea if it could work once per battle for no AP penalty; that would give me just enough time to use one or two Huntsman skills before melee. And if it did work, I wanted to understand how it worked so I could decide if it's a tactic I'd want to incorporate. TBH, Sebille's dual dagger Scoundrel/Poly/Warcraft attacks do a sick amount of damage so I'd have to give any changes a good deal of consideration. But you know how it is, there's always someone better so you gotta be alert, trust no one and keep your laser handy

Here are the relevant points from the original post:

"Although it costs AP to swap Weapons, you will hardly notice it in Lone Wolf and we can take advantage of Chameleon Cloak’s 2 turns to swap Weapons without losing any AP."

"Chameleon Cloak – Use this skill at the end of your first or second turn to hide from enemies. Try to use Adrenaline just before and then the following turn swap to your Daggers and Cloak and Dagger into position, then pass. This will leave you with full AP (8) for turn 3 or 4 without needing to move."

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I get what they're saying with the second point, but the fact is you would still be losing AP; that's why I thought maybe there was a mechanic I wasn't aware of.

That is being efficient in using AP. Being ready to deal damage at the start of the turn, and having max AP for that turn means you are maximizing damage output within one turn.