Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Staves can be wielded one-handed

I didn't realise this until towards the end of Act 2, having brought with me the baggage of assumption from playing other, similar games, such as Kingmaker, WotR and PoE.
I don't have to tell you that this massively helps squishies get access to off-hand item bonuses, while also being particularly useful to Druids, who don't get access to very many decent blunt 1-handed weapons to use Shillelagh on, outside of staves.

This is probably not news to a lot of posters here, but the game doesn't explicitly tell you this either, so I'm hoping this helps others with the same incorrect assumptions as me.

Some weapons have the "versatile" property.
They can be used with one hand or both hands. It should also work with longswords, battle axe and warhammer.
They do more damage when used with both hands.

But you don't get the full damage with one hand - the staff drops from 1d8 to 1d6. A longsword goes up from 1d8 (1H) to 1d10 (2H) but you obviously can't use a shield or off-hand weapon.

Indeed ...
The only letdown is that all (as far as i know so far) good shields in endgame is metalic, wich dont really work well with Druids in general. :-/

I know they didnt get "no metal" rule in BG-3 ... but some of us still respect original material, even tho Larian dont. :-/

I know about "Versatile" (and am a bit miffed it can't be toggled like other features). But that's not what this post is about. It's about helping other users like me who, through experience with other similasr games, may have assumed that staves are two-handed.



I'm never really taking staves for melee damage, but they still get Topple when used one-handed.
And as alluded to, what are the other options for Shillelagh in the game that provide the same bonuses as some of the better staves? You can theorise that clubs might do a better job than staves, but if clubs with equivalent bonuses don't exist in the game, that theorising means diddly-squat.

I don't do staves in one hand for damage, I'm doing it do my half elf sorc can use a shield.

She's got my party's highest AC lol.

Wizards and sorcerers are usually pretty terrible at hitting anything with a staff anyway.

then you are doing it wrong

My sorcerer is better off nuking something than hitting it with a stick.

Actually if you're hitting things with a staff using a wizard or sorc, you're the one doing it wrong.

As it turns out human or half elf wizard / sorcerer is actually a lot better because they can use shields, and there happens to be a +1 spell DC shield in the game.