Dwarven Weapon Training and Superior Weapons

[DracoSuave]

It's not that hard. it's the exact same as the Power Attack argument, but in reverse. Is it viable at that probability range to take -1 to hit to get +1 damage, and is the extra attack saved from not Second Winding making up for the damage loss?

Power Attack is -less- optimal the higher the damage of the weapon is, and so you'll find that DWT actually gets -worse- with Superior Weapons, not better.

 

[boar]

I'm seeing some extremely weird math on the posts about Brutal. Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your intent, but the math for Brutal doesn't need to get so complicated.

2d6 brutal 1 --> 8 expected damage
1d12 brutal 2 --> 7.5 expected damage

Don't let the fact that you're rerolling dice confuse you. Rolling a 12-sided die with brutal 2 is mathematically equivalent to rolling a 10-sided die with the numbers 3-12 written on it. Rolling a d6 with brutal 1 is equivalent to rolling a d5 with the numbers 2-6 written on it. You can just compute the expected values normally.

 

[brendan candries]

Wouldn't 1d12 average 6.5 damage and only go up to 7.5 with brutal 2?

(1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12) / 2 = 6.5; 1d12 has equal chances for 1-12
Get rid of 1 above and divide by 11 instead, and you get 7.

So 1d12 goes from 6.5 to 7 average damage w/brutal 1, making it on par average-wise with 2d6 but more likely to be high or low: 2d6 is going to most commonly be 7 because more combinations of numbers cause 7 than other numbers IE 1+6 2+5 3+4 4+3 5+2 6+1 versus just 6+6 for 12...)

XdY brutal one where x>0 threw me off a little, but then I realized the varying probabilities are on a bell curve anyway so it all balances out to just being able to average stuff and add them together... hence, (2+3+4+5+6)/5 = 4, so every brutal 1 d6 you add adds another 4dmg, etc...

So, anyway, 2d6 brutal 1 does average 8, but 1d12 brutal 2 only averages 7.5, 1d12 brutal 3 finally averages out to 8 to catch up to 2d6 brutal 1.

...right?

idd

my conclusion was right, just fumbled up the numbers. 6.5+1 for de d12.

 

[Truename]

Don't let the fact that you're rerolling dice confuse you. Rolling a 12-sided die with brutal 2 is mathematically equivalent to rolling a 10-sided die with the numbers 3-12 written on it. Rolling a d6 with brutal 1 is equivalent to rolling a d5 with the numbers 2-6 written on it. You can just compute the expected values normally.

Which is to say...

average = (lowest number you can roll + highest number you can roll) / 2

1d6 = (1+6)/2 = 3.5
1d6 brutal 2 = (3+6)/2 = 4.5
2d6 = (2+12)/2 = 7
2d6 brutal 1 = (4+12) / 2 = 8

I've crunched the numbers and the effect of superior axes and hammers is +1 average damage:

One-handed military hammer: Warhammer, avg roll 5.5 (6.5 versatile)
One-handed superior hammer: Craghammer, avg roll 6.5 (7.5 versatile)

Two-handed military hammer: Maul, avg roll 7
Two-handed superior hammer: Mordencrad, avg roll 8

One-handed military axe: Battleaxe, avg roll 5.5 (6.5 versatile)
One-handed superior axe: Waraxe, avg roll 6.5 (7.5 versatile)

Two-handed military axe: Greataxe, avg roll 6.5, high crit
Two-handed superior axe: Execution axe, avg roll 7.5, high crit

Net effect of DWT is +3 damage. Is that unbalanced compared to other racial feats?

 

[Kzach]

Umm... not sure if this has been pointed out or not as I'm not willing to trawl through the entire thread, but...

...has anyone noticed that in the Character Builder beta, dwarves don't get proficiency in ANY superior weapon, let alone the ones from AV?

 

[FireLance]

Umm... not sure if this has been pointed out or not as I'm not willing to trawl through the entire thread, but...

...has anyone noticed that in the Character Builder beta, dwarves don't get proficiency in ANY superior weapon, let alone the ones from AV?

Is this with or without the Dwarven Weapon Training feat?

 

[Lord Ernie]

Umm... not sure if this has been pointed out or not as I'm not willing to trawl through the entire thread, but...

...has anyone noticed that in the Character Builder beta, dwarves don't get proficiency in ANY superior weapon, let alone the ones from AV?

I don't know what version you're using, but the dwarven fighter I just made to check this is perfectly capable of wielding Craghammers and Execution Axes.

 

[Kzach]

Nevermind me, I'm retarded. I was under the impression that dwarves got proficiency in all hammers and axes automatically and that the feat just gave them a damage boost.

Carry on, nothing to see here

 

[Silverwave]

Think of it this way :

If your DM wants to give your character a new magic weapon (don't forget, on the treasure parcel, magic items are of higher lvl than you are, so it's objects that a party can't craft with the Enchant magic item ritual), he'll pick one that you can handle (if not, it's not you that gonna end with it anyway). So basically, if you have the DWT feat, your DM will end up only with greater choice of weapon he can give you. So either way, it's not you who choose the good weapons you'll want to use, so, in the end, it doesn't really matter.