theorycrafting question involving what weapon to use against undead

[jk7275]

I am in a 1st edition campaign and we need to take care of some undead including some packs of skeletons.
Now i have a magical halberd and I am proficient in morningstar and there is dwarf fighter with a magical battle axe who isn't proficient in any blunt weapons. With all else being the same I use the morningstar but in this case I hit more times with the halberd so i am a little unclear on how the theory crafting will work out

I been looking at anydice.com to see what the damage if fot 1 hit but how do factor in multiple hits and hitting more often vs doing more damage per hit


The dwarf and me are both 6 level and the magical weapons are +1. His strength bonus is +2 to hit +3 to damage mine is plus 1 to both

[Knaight]

Average damage is just non-crit hit probability times non-crit average damage times attacks per turn plus crit probability times crit average damage times attacks per turn. It's pretty easy to calculate.

[JustIgnoreMe]

Yeah, but in 1st Ed AD&D:

1) No criticals unless houseruled; and

2) Stupid weapon type vs armour type modifiers.

Will the skeletons be wearing chain mail?

[Knaight]

2) Stupid weapon type vs armour type modifiers.

So just plug these in to the initial probabilities for each case.

[LibraryOgre]

I am in a 1st edition campaign and we need to take care of some undead including some packs of skeletons.
Now i have a magical halberd and I am proficient in morningstar and there is dwarf fighter with a magical battle axe who isn't proficient in any blunt weapons. With all else being the same I use the morningstar but in this case I hit more times with the halberd so i am a little unclear on how the theory crafting will work out

I been looking at anydice.com to see what the damage if fot 1 hit but how do factor in multiple hits and hitting more often vs doing more damage per hit


The dwarf and me are both 6 level and the magical weapons are +1. His strength bonus is +2 to hit +3 to damage mine is plus 1 to both

So, let's assume an AC of 7, for a standard skeleton. We're also going to leave out the Weapon v. Armor type adjustments because, if you're facing monsters not in armor, they generally don't apply. At 6th level, you both will hit on a total of 9 or better against AC 7. You'll only get 1 attack, because you're sixth level.

You, with a +1 halberd, v. skeletons will hit on a roll of 7 or better; this translates to a 70% chance to hit. Your damage per hit will be 1d10+2, averaging to 7.5 per hit, or 5.25 damage per round... when not facing skeletons. Depending how your DM divides, this can get a little tricky; most DMs I know divide the whole damage, giving you an average of 3.75 per hit, or 2.625 per round. If she goes the nicer route, dividing only the damage of the weapon, and leaving your bonuses intact, you'll be at 4.75 per hit, or 3.325 per round.
If you switch to a morning star, you will hit on a 8 or better (65% of the time), and do 2d4+1 damage per hit, giving you a per-hit average of 6, and a per-round average of 3.9.

For you, the money is on the morning star. Grab a shield.

For Stunty McStunterson, he does 1d8+4 damage per hit, for an average of 8.5 per hit. He hits an AC of 7 on a 6 or better, meaning a 75% chance to hit, and an average of 6.375 v. non-skeleton opponents. Versus skeletons, this drops to 3.1875 per hit if standard, or 6.25 if nice, and 2.390625 or 4.6875 per round average, respectively.
If we give him a morningstar, his average is 8 damage per hit, with a 55% hit rate (taking a -2 penalty to hit for non-proficient weapon as a fighter). That gives him a per-round average of 4.4. With a hammer, this becomes 6.5/3.575. With a Footman's mace, it's 7.5/4.125, and a horseman's mace is 6.5/3.575

For Stunty, it depends on how your DM is dividing. If she's dividing standardly, he's better off with a blunt weapon in every case. If she's dividing nicely, he should stick with his axe.

[Jay R]

It's a little more complicated than that, because the skeletons have so few hit points. Any damage over the skeleton's hit points is wasted, so the average is not the best measure.

Consider two weapons. One always does 8 points, and the other does either 4 or 16. The second one has a higher average (10), but the first one kills every skeleton on the first blow, and is superior in this situation.

A brief calculation shows that the +1 halberd will kill a skeleton with one blow either 30.625% or 35%, depending on the DM. The morning star will do so 48.24% of the time, and is therefore significantly superior.

The dwarfs kills in one stroke 32.5% or 48.75% with the axe, depending on the DM. But he kills with a single attack 50.7% of the time with a non-magical morningstar. Note that he kills 5/8 of the time if he rolls 2 on 2d4, 3/4 of the time if he rolls 3, 7/8 of the time when he rolls 4, and kills automatically on 5-8. That means that with the morningstar he kills on over 92% of all successful hits. And he will always kill on the second successful blow.

[I'm assuming that skeletons get a straight d8 in hit points, with no modifiers. Not all DMs will do that. There are further complications about how often you'd have to hit twice, or three times, etc. But in general, against the lesser monsters, the probability of a kill in one shot is the best simple measure of a weapon.]

[jk7275]

A brief calculation shows that the +1 halberd will kill a skeleton with one blow either 30.625% or 35%, depending on the DM. The morning star will do so 48.24% of the time, and is therefore significantly superior.


I am a little unclear where the 30.625% is coming from. My damage will be (1d10+2)/2 The most I do in 1 hit is 6 and I am assuming they have 8 hit points

[LibraryOgre]

I am a little unclear where the 30.625% is coming from. My damage will be (1d10+2)/2 The most I do in 1 hit is 6 and I am assuming they have 8 hit points

He may be referring back to my post, where your damage is either (1d10+2)/2 or (1d10)/2+2.

[Jay R]

I am a little unclear where the 30.625% is coming from. My damage will be (1d10+2)/2 The most I do in 1 hit is 6 and I am assuming they have 8 hit points

As I said, "I'm assuming that skeletons get a straight d8 in hit points, with no modifiers. Not all DMs will do that."

Assuming 1d8 hit points:
If you roll a 1, your damage is 3/2 (or 1), and you kill 1/8 of the time.
If you roll a 2, your damage is 4/2 (or 2), and you kill 2/8 of the time.
If you roll a 3, your damage is 5/2 (or 2), and you kill 2/8 of the time.
If you roll a 4, your damage is 6/2 (or 3), and you kill 3/8 of the time.
If you roll a 5, your damage is 7/2 (or 3), and you kill 3/8 of the time.
If you roll a 6, your damage is 8/2 (or 4), and you kill 4/8 of the time.
If you roll a 7, your damage is 9/2 (or 4), and you kill 4/8 of the time.
If you roll a 8, your damage is 10/2 (or 5), and you kill 5/8 of the time.
If you roll a 9, your damage is 11/2 (or 5), and you kill 5/8 of the time.
If you roll a 10, your damage is 12/2 (or 6), and you kill 6/8 of the time.

Each of these happens 1/10 of the time. So you kill 35/80 of the time on successful hits, which is 43.75% of the times you hit. And you hit 70& of the time. So you kill a skeleton on 0.7 x 0.4375 = 0.30625 of the melee rounds in which you aim at an unhurt one.

But if your DM maxes out the hit points on monsters, instead of using 1d8 as the rules say, then this changes things. Let's look at it with 8 points each.

If they all have 8 hit points, that's a different calculation. Since you can never kill a skeleton in one blow, I would calculate the number of blows expected to kill one.
You kill on the first blow 0.00% of the time.
You kill on the 2nd blow 41.00% of the time.
You kill on the 3rd blow 46.10% of the time.
You kill on the 4th blow 11.61% of the time.
You kill on the 5th blow 1.23% of the time.
You kill on the 6th blow 0.06% of the time.
You kill on the 7th blow 0.0013% of the time.
You kill on the 8th blow 0.00001% of the time. [You had to roll a 1 for damage 7 times in a row.]

On average it takes 2.73 successful hits or 2.73 / 0.7 = 3.9 melee rounds to kill each skeleton.

With the morningstar, you kill on the first blow 18.75% of the time, on the second blow 79.3%, and on the third blow 1.95% of the time. On average it takes 1.83 successful hits, or 1.83 / 0.65 = 2.81 melee rounds to kill each skeleton. You save slightly over one melee round per skeleton.

I don't have time to work it out for the dwarf.

Edit: Ok, I’ve had to time deal with the dwarf.

With the axe, the dwarf kills on his second successful hit 60.9% of the time, on the third 37.7% of the time, and on the fourth 1.4% of the time. That’s an average of 2.4 successful hits. At a rate of 0.75 hits per attack, that takes 3.2 attacks to kill one skeleton.

With the non-magical morning star, he kills on the first hit 62.5% of the time, and on the second 37.5% of the time. That’s an average of 1.375 hits per kill. Hits come at a rate of 0.55 per attack, so it will take 2.5 attacks to kill a skeleton.

So the dwarf kills skeletons 28% faster with the non-magical morningstar than with the axe, while you kill 38% faster. In ten rounds, the two of you would kill 5.7 skeletons with the halberd and axe, or 7.6 with the morningstars.