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Isomenes
2008-07-20, 01:30 PM
So I'm curious: does an untrained Bastard Sword yield better or worse average damage than a proficient Longsword? Both are versatile, so the only difference in the attack roll (ceteris paribus) is a +3. Do I need to run it out by hand, or can I just do some magical multiplication to get a decent approach to an answer?

The New Bruceski
2008-07-20, 01:34 PM
1d10 vs 1d8 is 1 more average damage.
+3 to hit is 15% more chance to hit.
In general (because powers don't mean anything if they miss) +1 damage is considered less important than +1 to hit.

So the longsword is the pretty clear winner without a feat.

Zocelot
2008-07-20, 01:58 PM
The longsword is much better, especially if you consider that a lot of powers require hits to have an effect.

TheOOB
2008-07-20, 02:33 PM
Really, a trained dagger is better then an untrained bastard sword. You need to hit with your attack in order to do damage, and attacks vs AC (of which most weapon attacks are) assume you are getting a +2 weapon bonus to the attack roll. Nothing sucks more then having a powerful ability that you completely wasted because you missed. To that end, +3 attack bonus is worth a lot.

Keep in mind that the argument still rages for which is better, a greatsword or a greataxe, and thats trading 1 attack bonus for approx 1.325 damage(high crit on a great axe deals an average of .325 damage an attack). 3 attack bonus for 1 damage isn't even a contest.

Viruzzo
2008-07-20, 02:52 PM
A thing to consider is that fighters have many reliable powers that soften the miss problem, and also that powers sometime get x[W] damage (and that increases with tiers), so the difference may be 3d8 (average 13.5) and 3d10 (average 16.5).

Crow
2008-07-20, 03:19 PM
Ideally, you don't even want Reliable to become an issue. Even if you miss and do not lose the use of the power, you still spent an action, which sucks. In almost every case it is better to use the weapon you are proficient in as the damage you would gain in two rounds of attacks is almost always greater than the damage you would gain from using the bastard sword and risking a miss. Attack bonuses are king in this edition.

Kurald Galain
2008-07-21, 02:51 AM
A thing to consider is that fighters have many reliable powers that soften the miss problem, and also that powers sometime get x[W] damage (and that increases with tiers), so the difference may be 3d8 (average 13.5) and 3d10 (average 16.5).

Neither is sufficient to make up for a +3 to hit. Yes, fighter powers go up to 5[W] or 7[W] or something (AFB), but remember that if you don't hit, you do substantially less damage than the difference between 5W and 7W.

Also, reliable doesn't come into this. This is because if you miss with a reliable power, you've wasted your action for that round. The currency of combat is time.

wumpus
2008-07-23, 07:34 PM
Keep in mind that the argument still rages for which is better, a greatsword or a greataxe, and thats trading 1 attack bonus for approx 1.325 damage(high crit on a great axe deals an average of .325 damage an attack). 3 attack bonus for 1 damage isn't even a contest.

For the above, the answer is easy. Be a dwarf, take dwarven weapon proficiency (required for dwarven clerics), and rule with the axe. Non-dwarves might want to keep thinking about it.

Gralamin
2008-07-23, 08:10 PM
Keep in mind that the argument still rages for which is better, a greatsword or a greataxe, and thats trading 1 attack bonus for approx 1.325 damage(high crit on a great axe deals an average of .325 damage an attack). 3 attack bonus for 1 damage isn't even a contest.

By the time you have a Vorpal weapon, The Great Axe is better then the Great Sword (2.5 damage on average more, based on my calculations. Allows for truly devastating criticals) Including Gauntlets of Destruction and the devastating critical ability into the damage, then running through a program that will roll and average based on a million iterations, you get the following results.


Normal Attack average 13.6951
Critical Attack Average 94.0495
Average attack damage, including critical chance but not miss chance (0.9*13.6951)+(0.1*94.0495) = 21.7305

Normal Attack average 13.7016
Critical Attack Average 68.9368
Average attack damage, including critical chance but not miss chance (0.9*13.7016)+(0.1*68.9368) = 19.2251

Daily power of Vorpal Weapon 23.0855 to 23.1088

Draco Ignifer
2008-07-23, 11:49 PM
I looked at this with 22 different possible monster sets - monsters whose ACs range from 2 above your attack bonus with the bastard sword (which you can hit on a 2-20) to 23 above your attack bonus with the bastard sword (which you can only hit with a 20 even with the long sword). The Bastard Sword wins from 2 to 7 and at 23 - in other words, if you can only hit the monster on a 20 with the longsword, the bastard sword is clearly better, but the bastard sword is also better if you have less than a 40% chance of missing the monster.

Most monsters, of course, are going to be in the higher range - AC is generally the highest defense - without being critical hit only enemies. Which means that, yes, you do want a longsword rather than that bastard sword. But even if you're fighting a full mix of enemy ACs, you probably want that long sword - if you assume an even chance of encountering monsters with each of those ACs, the longsword will still do better. It's only if you're encountering a number of monsters so low in AC that you can barely miss them or so high that you can only hit them on a critical that the bastard sword becomes better, which is not going to happen in your normal game.

Yakk
2008-07-24, 12:21 AM
Gralamin, you just neglected the +1 to hit advantage of the great sword.

No kidding, if you ignore the +1 to hit advantage, the great axe beats the great sword.

Suppose you hit on an 12+ with the Great Axe, and 11+ with the Great Sword.

Suppose you have a +20 modifier to damage, and are using a 3[W] attack.

Now:
GS die damage: [2+...+10+X]/9 = X
8/9*X = [(10)(11)/2 -1]/9 = [(10)(11)/2-1]/8 = 6.75
GA die damage: [2+...12+X]/11 = X
X = [12*13/2-1]/10 = 7
(same with Vorpal die damage)

GS normal damage: 40.25
GS crit damage: 50+6d12 = 92

GX dam/action: 0.1*GS_crit + 0.4*GS_normal
= 25.3

GA normal damage: 41.0
GA crit damage: 56+9d12 = 119

GA dam/action: 0.1*GA_crit + 0.35*GA_normal
= 26.25

Result? The GA does 3.75% more damage than the GA on average per attack attempt with this model. (most of this effect is from crits, which means the difference has high variance).

The GS, however, lands "hit" effects better than the GA (about 10% more often -- ie, if the GA lands 10 "hit" effects, the GS lands 11).

Gralamin
2008-07-24, 12:39 AM
Gralamin, you just neglected the +1 to hit advantage of the great sword.

No kidding, if you ignore the +1 to hit advantage, the great axe beats the great sword.

Suppose you hit on an 12+ with the Great Axe, and 11+ with the Great Sword.

Suppose you have a +20 modifier to damage, and are using a 3[W] attack.

Now:
GS die damage: [2+...+10+X]/9 = X
8/9*X = [(10)(11)/2 -1]/9 = [(10)(11)/2-1]/8 = 6.75
GA die damage: [2+...12+X]/11 = X
X = [12*13/2-1]/10 = 7
(same with Vorpal die damage)

GS normal damage: 40.25
GS crit damage: 50+6d12 = 92

GX dam/action: 0.1*GS_crit + 0.4*GS_normal
= 25.3

GA normal damage: 41.0
GA crit damage: 56+9d12 = 119

GA dam/action: 0.1*GA_crit + 0.35*GA_normal
= 26.25

Result? The GA does 3.75% more damage than the GA on average per attack attempt with this model. (most of this effect is from crits, which means the difference has high variance).

The GS, however, lands "hit" effects better than the GA (about 10% more often -- ie, if the GA lands 10 "hit" effects, the GS lands 11).

I noted I didn't include hit percentages, because I didn't feel like running all those numbers :smallwink:. However yes you are correct, the Great Axe is a very high variance weapon.

In the mean time, I've run more numbers, and by the looks of it, the falchion is the weapon of choice. (http://code.bulix.org/djfqm0-67707)

Tsotha-lanti
2008-07-24, 01:18 AM
I noted I didn't include hit percentages, because I didn't feel like running all those numbers :smallwink:. However yes you are correct, the Great Axe is a very high variance weapon.

In the mean time, I've run more numbers, and by the looks of it, the falchion is the weapon of choice. (http://code.bulix.org/djfqm0-67707)

There's no such thing as "average damage" (the only useful comparison) without accounting for chance to hit (especially when the weapon directly affects the chance). Since, you know, average damage is damage * chance to hit.

And if you're run more numbers, can you post them? That helps turn your statement from a wild announcement into fact.

TheOOB
2008-07-24, 01:38 AM
There is a statistic that most formula's don't take into account, wasted damage. A fair amount of the time, a significant portion of the extra high crit damage will go above and beyond that which is neccesary to kill your opponent, which makes the extra damage largely wasted. There is also something to be said for damage consistency. Even if say a great axe averages a higher damage then a greatsword over time, the fact remains that you will hit more often with a great sword which lowers the chance you will miss at a crucial moment (day with a life saving daily power during a tough battle).

Gralamin
2008-07-24, 01:57 AM
There's no such thing as "average damage" (the only useful comparison) without accounting for chance to hit (especially when the weapon directly affects the chance). Since, you know, average damage is damage * chance to hit.

And if you're run more numbers, can you post them? That helps turn your statement from a wild announcement into fact.

I have not run the average damage including to hit (Which is different from plain average damage), but as the Falchion has a +3 proficiency to hit (so, as Yakk said, should hit 10% more of the time compared to a +2 prof weapon), and does more normal attack and slightly less critical damage then a great axe (as shown in the link to the pastebin I posted. About 1.1 more damage), it logically is the best weapon out there if your following the strategy of Vorpal + Gauntlets of destruction (as could be guessed, as you have a 2/3 chance of rolling at least one 4 on the two dice). I'd also like to point out that multiplying the average damage of the greatsword by 1.1 (to account for the difference Yakk posted, with the greataxe as a base), it is still ~0.6 below the average damage of a great-axe (again, great-axe is acting as a base in this assessment)

edit: In-case you cannot be bothered to look at the link, here is the numbers for the Falchion:


Normal Attack average: 14.9973
Critical Attack average: 93.9340
Average attack damage: 22.8910 = (0.9*14.9973)+(0.1*93.9340)



There is a statistic that most formula's don't take into account, wasted damage. A fair amount of the time, a significant portion of the extra high crit damage will go above and beyond that which is neccesary to kill your opponent, which makes the extra damage largely wasted. There is also something to be said for damage consistency. Even if say a great axe averages a higher damage then a greatsword over time, the fact remains that you will hit more often with a great sword which lowers the chance you will miss at a crucial moment (day with a life saving daily power during a tough battle).

Yes, such as the highest iteration the program has achieved (191 damage). And yes this is mostly true. However, it is very difficult to calculate how much damage is wasted. If you can suggest a way, I'm all for it.

TheOOB
2008-07-24, 02:32 AM
Yes, such as the highest iteration the program has achieved (191 damage). And yes this is mostly true. However, it is very difficult to calculate how much damage is wasted. If you can suggest a way, I'm all for it.

There is no good formula (or even a bad one really), I am just suggesting that a mathematical equation cannot cover every contingency. In the long run, you are going to have to ask yourself which type of weapon do you think will perform best, and which types of random numbers will you prefer. There is no absolute number that says "x is better then y" and most of the numbers that are generated show small differences between comparable weapons, a small enough difference that the other, difficult to measure factors still can make or break your choice.

Gralamin
2008-07-24, 02:40 AM
There is no good formula (or even a bad one really), I am just suggesting that a mathematical equation cannot cover every contingency. In the long run, you are going to have to ask yourself which type of weapon do you think will perform best, and which types of random numbers will you prefer. There is no absolute number that says "x is better then y" and most of the numbers that are generated show small differences between comparable weapons, a small enough difference that the other, difficult to measure factors still can make or break your choice.

While true, it is still, from a statistical point the best most of us can do. I think from some preliminary numbers, a Large Greataxe out damages every other large weapon, both in average damage and in critical.

[hr]
Too run all of the numbers I have generated to include to hit, work under the following ideas:
Assuming against AC, as most attacks are that have the weapon keyword, then the average AC of the level should be (30*6+14*3+16+12*2)/6, or in other words: 43.67 AC. I'll round up for convenience to 44 AC. (Based off the DMG Creating monster formulas)

Highest attack bonus you can get is:
+15 (Level)
+6 (Item)
+8 or +9 (Stat to hit, I'll go with 8)
+3 or +2 (Proficiency, This will be the difference)
+1 (Fighter Class bonus to hit with two-handed weapons, why not.)
= +33 or +32 to hit.

44-33 = 11 or above needed to hit.
44-32 = 12 or above needed to hit.
Hey look, those are Yakk's values.

+3 prof weapons have a 40% chance to deal average damage, and a 10% chance to deal critical damage. The other 50% is a miss.
+2 prof weapons have a 35% chance to deal average damage, and a 10% chance to deal critical damage. The other 55% is a miss.

Multiply Normal damage by 0.40 or 0.35, and multiply critical damage by 0.1. Add the two numbers together. That is the average damage against a creature of your level.

If you really wanted to, you could find the differences of each roll, but I should really be asleep right now instead of typing.

Yakk
2008-07-24, 11:30 AM
Actually, generate a model of monster HP.

Normal Monsters at level X have about 8.5*L+20 HP. Elites 2x, and Solos ~5x.

Build your full distribution of damage done by your attack. Apply it to a Normal, Solo and Elite, and calculate the probability that it will take 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., n attacks to kill that target.

(Note that defenses tend to be about 14+L, while attack tends to be about 6+0.9*L -- attack lags defense as you gain levels, by about 1 ATK per tier.)

Build a histogram for each weapon, and then compare them. Subtraction is good, as is mean and variance measures.

All of this can actually be done mathematically, or if you prefer, you can run simulations.

Gralamin
2008-07-24, 12:41 PM
Actually, generate a model of monster HP.

Normal Monsters at level X have about 8.5*L+20 HP. Elites 2x, and Solos ~5x.

Build your full distribution of damage done by your attack. Apply it to a Normal, Solo and Elite, and calculate the probability that it will take 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., n attacks to kill that target.

(Note that defenses tend to be about 14+L, while attack tends to be about 6+0.9*L -- attack lags defense as you gain levels, by about 1 ATK per tier.)

Build a histogram for each weapon, and then compare them. Subtraction is good, as is mean and variance measures.

All of this can actually be done mathematically, or if you prefer, you can run simulations.

That would work, however it assumes a solo fight against the monster and no other effects coming into play on you or the creature, so its a pretty poor model, but probably the best we could do.

mroozee
2008-07-25, 03:11 AM
There is no good formula (or even a bad one really), I am just suggesting that a mathematical equation cannot cover every contingency.

In 3.5, I built a program that calculated the exact odds for a particular (limited) type of melee combat. If exact odds are not required, you could always build a simple simulator and test both weapons in the various tasks you expect to face - weighting them accordingly.

Once THAT is done (ad nauseum) you can get a bad formula (or even a good one really) by feeding the weapon/character attributes and the results into a neural network to train. The resulting trained neural network is that formula.

Frost
2008-07-25, 07:11 AM
All this talk of weapons is silly. You have missed two most important things:

1) If you are a Rogue, use a Dagger. Ranger use scimitars whatever.

2) If you are a Fighter, you want to use your Best Heavy Blade. This may be Bastard Sword because really what else are you going to use a feat on.

3) If you are a Cleric or Warlord or whatever, you take the feat, get a Bastard Sword and wail away.

Why do Heavy Blades win? Simple: Heavy Blade oppurtunity.

How does it feel to hand out a +5 to hit to an ally with every AoO? How about at level 21 where you hand out +9s with every AoO.

I'll take a free use of an at-will (not to mention the +3 prof bonus and the highest one handed base damage) over a little extra damage. Especially at level 21 where 2[W] of a Bastard Sword is going to exceed the damage dice of any basic attack.

Kurald Galain
2008-07-25, 07:25 AM
All this talk of weapons is silly. You have missed two most important things:

Actually that's quite funny. One of the complaints about 3.5 was that of the long list of weapons and armor in the PHB, only a few things were actually worth taking. They solved this in 4E by greatly reducing the different kinds of weapon and armor available, and judged by this thread there turn out to be even less things actually worth taking.

Frost
2008-07-25, 07:37 AM
Actually that's quite funny. One of the complaints about 3.5 was that of the long list of weapons and armor in the PHB, only a few things were actually worth taking. They solved this in 4E by greatly reducing the different kinds of weapon and armor available, and judged by this thread there turn out to be even less things actually worth taking.

Yes and No.

In 3.5 you wanted, Greatsword/Spiked Chain/Composite Longbow/ or Dual Shortswords.

Maybe something else if you were looking at a particularly weird build using Exotic Weapon Master, or Master Thrower.

In 4e. You have only one choice no matter what class you choose, but it's mostly a different one for each class.

It's:

Rogue: Dagger
Fighter: Greatsword/Bastard Sword
Ranger: Dual Scimitars/Bow
Warlord/Cleric: Bastard Sword
Paladin: Bastard Sword? Don't know, never really looked at the Paladin Class.

Some people will argue for the Heavy Maul for Fighters because they care about Damage so much, even though whatever you get from those extra at-wills and higher prof is usually going to be much better.

Same for Rogue and Rapier, but no Heavy Blade, and a +2 Prof bonus instead.

So even though they have more total weapons used, they have practically no weapon choice independent of class.

Polearm Gambit falls into the Master Thrower area of something that is more of a gimic then a real optimization choice, though it might be later with splatbooks.

Mando Knight
2008-07-25, 07:39 AM
I was wondering about the Bastard Sword, myself. Since 1H fighting is stronger in 4E, and the Bastard Sword uses the same damage dice as the Greatsword, I was thinking that taking the proficiency feat would be good if only for the ability to use a 1d10 weapon and a heavy shield at the same time... especially for Paladins and Fighters, who tend to have or want high AC and damage at the same time.

The strongest daily power for either Fighter or Paladin has a 7[W], right? So for a longsword, that's 7-56 (30.5 average) unmodified damage, but for the Bastard Sword, it's 7-70 (33.5 average). That's a rather large cap discrepancy, and the average damage difference is roughly equal to Epic level Weapon Focus, which you might as well take anyway since it applies to an entire weapon group now instead of one weapon.

Yakk
2008-07-25, 10:14 AM
That would work, however it assumes a solo fight against the monster and no other effects coming into play on you or the creature, so its a pretty poor model, but probably the best we could do.
You could do better -- but the nice thing about this model is that it is pretty and simple. :-)

It presumes that others have a similar damage curve, and abstracts out your to-hit number to be a consistent 6+0.9*L. Maybe the extra 0.1 is supposed to come from "bonus to attack" powers. :-)

The New Bruceski
2008-07-25, 10:40 AM
It's:

Rogue: Dagger
Fighter: Greatsword/Bastard Sword
Ranger: Dual Scimitars/Bow
Warlord/Cleric: Bastard Sword
Paladin: Bastard Sword? Don't know, never really looked at the Paladin Class.


Man, you really like opportunity attacks. I've found that enemies actively avoid them. In five games I think we've had 2 for our whole party, and 2 chances for me to use Combat Challenge. Then again we've been fighting through a kobold lair, shifty little buggers.

I would say take the rogue down the TWF feat chain and use a dagger and rapier/katar. Swing the harder-hitting one if you can't sneak attack (no combat advantage, already did it, etc).

Why do you pick the Greatsword over the Falchion? 1d10 vs 2d4 isn't much of a difference and the Falchion has high crit. Even with your great love for Heavy Blade Opportunity ruling out axes and such, the Falchion is a valid choice.

For a ranger the +1 to hit from longswords might be better, attacks do nothing if they miss. I'd call it a trade-off.

I really like Warlords with polearms, because at low levels (I haven't looked at high) a lot of their stuff affects an ally "adjacent to you or the target" so it gives extra positioning choices. It also allows Leaf on the Wind to put another melee into flanking immediately (move behind them, swap them and the target).

wodan46
2008-07-25, 11:42 AM
Actually, most Military weapons are usable.


For 1 handed weapons, you have the following choices:
Battleaxe, Flail, and Warhammer have 1d10, are all useful for some feats/powers
Longsword has +1 to attack, but is 1d8, Bastard Sword is 1d10 but costs feat
Then a Shield in the other hand and you are set

For 2 handed weapons, you have the following choices
Glaive, Halberd, and Longspear all have reach and various powers
Greatsword has +1 attack
Greataxe, Heavy Flail, Maul have 2d6/1d12 die, useful for some feats/powers
Spiked Chain is only reach weapon that has the +1 attack

So in short, there are about 13 different weapon builds that can be done of variable quality, probably about 10 which qualify as decent.

The only weapons that suck are most simple weapons, War Pick, and the Longspear.

Starbuck_II
2008-07-25, 12:13 PM
For a ranger the +1 to hit from longswords might be better, attacks do nothing if they miss. I'd call it a trade-off.


I think Scimitar Dance feat when Paragon is why he chose Scimitar. The feat is awesome. Now attacks always do something if you miss.