so... weapon damage...

[bobthe6th]

are the numbers actually balanced?
poking around, I found that critical threat and multiplire are balanced against each other...(5% for each point, so a 10% damage boost overall for 18-20 and x4 damage weapons) and that they are equal with keen, hitting 20% average damage increase...

But each point costs 1 point of your average damage rolls... am I missing something? why wouldn't you take the full x4 or 18-20 at anything but low levels?

[Fruchtkracher]

I am no expert in any way, but I suspect that if your main damage sources do not get multiplied on a crit (such as sneak attack unless I'm mistaken) then a higher base damage would be preferable.
On another hand, I'd rank the 18-20 range over the x4 any time, seeing how the quadruple damage should often end in overkill...

[Big Fau]

In my opinion, not really. The variance between the stats of two weapons is so minimal that it almost makes no difference. 1d10 is not that big of a step up from 1d8, and only slightly more notable than 1d6.

I'd personally start the scale for damage higher than the current base (2d4 for something like a Dart, and scale it up to 3d12 for a Fullblade). Obviously adjusting HP would be required, but this would allow a larger array of variance and require more thought about your base weapon.

[Kelb_Panthera]

By the time you reach mid levels the base damage of your weapon is completely irrelevant. The order of importance for a weapon's stats goes:

1 hand/2 hand/light -> Reach -> Special abilities, i.e. trip/disarm/misc. -> critical stats -> base damage

Obviously if you're building a crit fisher then crit stats move up to the front of the line, but if you're doing that then you're automatically picking an 18-20.

Otherwise, the first three stats are immensely more important than base damage and crit stats. The base damage will be completely eclipsed by other sources of damage while, unless you're building to them, the crit stats are only relevant for 14.25% of attacks at most.

[Krazzman]

A x4 Weapon can be of a great advantage in certain situations.

As this is a Team-focused game where you can have teamwork feats and so on it is going to be an advantage if you can grant your crits to someone else and thus generating a weapon with 15-20 x4. (Pathfinder: Butterfly sting).

The main point about a weapon is not the base damage, it's the bonus damage that counts.

For example in our level 6 group we played on wednesday our Ninja Critted with her Kama.. for 6 damage! Awesome isn't it? At least my EB later critted for 28 damage (empowered 6d6+2 damage...)

There are things that don't get multiplied by Crits like Sneak attack dice (I think bonus damage like from craven or the Swashbuckler's +int mod damage) so for that crit's would be less important. And the base weapon damage is not that important as you can have no luck and roll 8 times a 1 with your d4 for your scythe. But 8 + 4x 1.5 strenght-mod is still quite a sum. So base damage is not that important. ranging between 8 and 32 (average 20) damage on a crit is not that big a stretch. the difference between the bonus damage is that what really counts.

[Downysole]

x4 is great for stacking an X-Burst ability as well.

Coup de Grace greatly benefits from this kind of stacking, but it's not always easy to get someone helpless.