No, nothing should be equipped without an action cost. That said, you should get ONE free action per turn to switch between any equipped weapon, BEFORE you attack. So no equipping Shields after attacking, ever.
I agree that would be my preference, and in fact argued for it in
another related thread. But if Larian aren’t going to change free toggling between equipped weapon sets it would only make the problem worse to allow two melee sets, and in fact I’m not convinced that a character should ever be able to have even one free swap between different melee weapon configurations, so unless someone changes my mind would be in favour of handling that differently than attacking at melee/range anyway.
That's why they are "giving" a bow slot to low dex tanks who don't want it.
High strength characters are free to ignore the ranged weapon slot and instead use the functionality that allows them to freely swap to use any thrown weapon in their inventory without penalty if they need to attack at range. All thrown weapons are basically treated by the game as equipped just by having them in your inventory. I suspect handling that differently and forcing us to equip them would only be a faff given we lose them from our inventory when thrown, so have no desire to change this, though as I’ve mentioned elsewhere I think characters should only get one free swap between held and thrown weapons, if that is limited for melee/ranged weapons as I’d like.
