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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 1343899" data-attributes="member: 2629">Actually, I mentioned a second big one ... when PCs get a bigger increase in the percentage to hit chance from IRS than they get a percentage increase in damage from weapon specialization ... As an example, A PC that deals an average of 20 per strike but only hits 20% of the time versus his typical high AC foes will get a&nbsp; bigger increase in expected damage from IRS (from 4 pts per attack to 5 pts) than a character that takes weapon specialization (from 4 pts per attack to 4.4 pts per attack). This type of thing occurs in games with foes that have high ACs or when PCs deal a lot of damage. I'm sure high AC foes and high damage PCs are rare ... it isn't like rangers get precision damage and rogues get to use a bow for sneak attacks ...My prior post mentioned one example of a much larger section: Extra damage is only meaningful if it results in a foe falling down in fewer attacks. In other words, if you hit an opponent 4 times and take it down with attacks in which you used weapon specialization, weapon specialization only was effectyive if the foe ends up at 0 to -8. If he ends up at -9 or worse, your extra damage was meaningless. An extra point of damage per attack *rarely* accounts to a quicker kill in most combats in amny games.I could go on and list a lot more situations where the formulas used in this thread fail. Why? Because there are a lot of variables in D&amp;D that are not captured in these simple formulas. These formulas provide a general picture, but you need to test their results in many campaigns to know if they are actually representative of a real campaign situation.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 1343899, member: 2629"] Actually, I mentioned a second big one ... when PCs get a bigger increase in the percentage to hit chance from IRS than they get a percentage increase in damage from weapon specialization ... As an example, A PC that deals an average of 20 per strike but only hits 20% of the time versus his typical high AC foes will get a bigger increase in expected damage from IRS (from 4 pts per attack to 5 pts) than a character that takes weapon specialization (from 4 pts per attack to 4.4 pts per attack). This type of thing occurs in games with foes that have high ACs or when PCs deal a lot of damage. I'm sure high AC foes and high damage PCs are rare ... it isn't like rangers get precision damage and rogues get to use a bow for sneak attacks ... My prior post mentioned one example of a much larger section: Extra damage is only meaningful if it results in a foe falling down in fewer attacks. In other words, if you hit an opponent 4 times and take it down with attacks in which you used weapon specialization, weapon specialization only was effectyive if the foe ends up at 0 to -8. If he ends up at -9 or worse, your extra damage was meaningless. An extra point of damage per attack *rarely* accounts to a quicker kill in most combats in amny games. I could go on and list a lot more situations where the formulas used in this thread fail. Why? Because there are a lot of variables in D&D that are not captured in these simple formulas. These formulas provide a general picture, but you need to test their results in many campaigns to know if they are actually representative of a real campaign situation. [/QUOTE]

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