http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/43079
v1.0
Download from http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/43079
Check out my other mods for Oblivion and Skyrim http://www.alshammajones.com/?page_id=228.


WARNING!
Requires Oblivion Patch 1.2.0.416, OBSE 20 and NifSE 1.0. Forget to install these, and this mod will do absolutely nothing.

Simple Dual Wielding is exactly that--a mod that lets you jump into the game, grab any two melee weapons (Vanilla or modded), and dual wield 'em!

But how does it work?

First, equip a melee weapon like normal. Then, to equip a weapon in your left hand, hover your mouse over it in the inventory menu and press the block key (default: left mouse button). Voila!

When dual wielding, you attack and block like normal. This mod adds no extra key bindings to learn or anything fancy like that.

What about damage, enchantments, and all that?

How well you can dual wield depends on your weapon skills and strength. If you're dual wielding blades, it's your Blade skill; likewise, dual wielding blunt weapons relies on your Blunt skill. Using one of each relies on an average of the two. Here are the benefits you gain at each skill level:

Novice: Too clumsy to dual wield properly. You'll actually deal less than the average of your two weapon's attack power in damage. Your range and speed is the average of your two weapons. You only get the enchantment of your main hand weapon.
Apprentice: Your attack power is equal to the average of your two weapons. No real advantage to dual wielding, but at least you don't take a penalty.
Journeyman: You gain the "gestalt" perk. You attack as quickly as your fastest weapon and have the reach of your longest weapon. If you wield two long weapons, you gain bonus damage to make up for lack of speed; if you wield two fast weapons, you gain bonus speed.
Expert: You attack with the enchantment from both weapons.
Master: No additional bonuses. Sorry.

As for your strength, well...

100 Strength: You can use a two-handed weapon in your right hand.
150 Strength: You can use a two-handed weapon in your left hand.

What about animations?

Not supported in this mod. If you want sweet animations, you'll have to use an animation mod in conjunction with this one. Sorry!

But how do I install it?

Just unzip the thing in your Oblivion\Data folder! To uninstall, uncheck Simple Dual Wielding.esp in your load order and delete Simple Dual Wielding.esp and .txt from your Data folder. Not hard, right?

What's the story behind this mod, anyway?

I've wanted a good dual wielding system for ages, but I lacked the dexterity to make full use of the excellent Unnecessary Violence mod. All I wanted was a way to use the default battle system, just with two weapons at the same time. So I quietly made this mod to tide me over until Skyrim came out. It's not feature complete yet (I was going to add hotkeys for dual wielding and off-hand poisoning), so I never got around to releasing it.

Well, Skyrim's out, and I doubt I'll ever find time to mod for Oblivion again. I don't see any reason to just sit on this mod, so here it goes. If you want to finish the work I started, go ahead. No permission is necessary. Just let me know so that I can add a forwarding link to your new and improved version.

Looks like I forgot to enable screenshots for this install of Oblivion. Oops. I invite anyone who tries this out to upload their own.

I can't guarantee I'll be able to support any technical issues for this mod, but let me know if you encounter any problems. I don't recall having any serious issues in my own gameplay (If I recall correctly, I played one 100-hour character with this, but that was over a year ago), though there are some quirks. For instance, your block animation changes if you save and reload while dual wielding, but that just adds variety, right?