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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 492053" data-attributes="member: 554">For lower to mid-level characters, the energy effects (fire, cold, electricity, acid, and sonic) are generally better than keen. Look at it this way -- the extra threat range you'd get with a keen rapier improve your damage output by 15% (in the best case, that is, when you're attacking something that can be critted, and when every attack roll that's good enough to threaten is also good enough to hit). The energy effects give you an extra +3.5 points of damage, on average, against things that don't resist them.So that means, against something that neither resists the energy of your choice (the least-resisted are acid and sonic) and can be critted, you'd choose between an extra 3.5 damage (not multiplied on criticals) and an extra 15%. Let's round the extra damage down to +3, since you don't multiply it on criticals. Note that undead, constructs, and oozes aren't all that rare, so there's no reason to think you'll be able to take advantage of your keen weapon all that much more often than your energy damage, so let's treat those as equally useful.So now there's only one question left. Do you average more than 20 (3 / .15) damage per hit? If you did, you'd want the extra 15% from the keen weapon. Since you probably don't, you probably want the extra energy (preferably sonic or acid) damage.</blockquote>