I tested a bit a few bandits in Levelers Arena but only to see what I wanted. They are, indeed, very slow concerning 1H and 2H weapons movements. So I was thinking, if you agree, to give them a perk like Dual Flurry, to increase the speed when they fight; either with one handed either with two handed.
I am always attempting on improving severity especially for bandits as far as concerning capabilities if they looks very weak.
Unfortunatly changing the speed will not make them any better but it's a cheap cheat easy workaround like increasing their damage or making player deal less damage.
Bandit's range from plain rank to marauders. That's where you may find some challenge.
The fact is that for the Vanilla leveled list you may meet plain bandits and kill them with 1 hit.
I am going definitely to fix this asap.
SAI is designed in a way that wish to keep as legit as possible every combat.
That's why I choosen Ultimate Combat as shoulder module which make combat feel realistic and make npc (not weapons) move faster, dodge attacks making a feeling of challenge in reflexes for the player.
It's not about speed of the weapon which would be really a predictable patty setting for the reason that ppl would be not able to strike at same speed... making the game unbalanced & unfair and in best cases ridicolous if you think a bandit may hit you 3 times and deal you 50 damage while you hit him once and instakill...
In sai bandits may own similar perks to player according to their skills..
Soon I will release a new version of Humans & Undeads which provide in more cases only the hardest bandits meetable, so if you are level 70 you will no longer meet a std Bandit which you may be challengable at level 1 only just to kill him with a bigmouth.
I bet 5 bandits Chief or Marauder of your same level are enough much a trouble.
Just an ex: it took me 10 clock min to kill a chief once just because we were both shield/sword build and I had to keeping cover his attacks and recover my sword after a few min dealing with a knife just because he disarmed me... believe me: they hit already very fast, and it's not about perks who add speed... it's only about a special behavor which Ultimate Combat manage.
but firstly you need to install Ultimate combat which i bet you do not own :-)