Melee Weapon Mastery before Improved Critical?

[Quartz]

I actually ran the maths, and it's tighter than you'd think. I find the responses thus far very interesting.

Consider the archetypical weapon, the Scimitar. 1d6 damage, 18-20 crit, x2 damage. Or the Longsword, 1d8, 19-20 crit, x2 damage

Improved Critical gives you a crit range of 15-20 and 11 damage (assuming WS) with the scimitar, 17-20 and 13 damage (ditto) with the long sword. We're excluding bonuses from Str, PA, and magic.

At +8 BAB you've got 2 attacks. With Improved Critical, you're causing a critical almost every other round (assuming all attacks hit) with the scimitar, and twice every 5 rounds with the longsword.

Scimitar sans IC: ((1d6+2)x17/20)+((1d6+2)x2x3/20)= 6.325 per hit.
Scimitar with IC: ((1d6+2)x14/20)+((1d6+2)x2x6/20)= 7.15 per hit.
Scimitar with MWM: ((1d6+4)x17/20)+((1d6+4)x2x3/20)= 8.54 per hit
Longsword sans IC: ((1d8+2)x18/20)+((1d8+2)x2x2/20)= 7.15 per hit
Longsword with IC: (1d8+2)x16/20)+((1d8+2)x2x4/20)= 7.8 per hit
Longsword with MWM: (1d8+4)x18/20)+((1d8+4)x2x2/20)= 9.35 per hit

Significant but not actually spectacularly clear. Let's add 10 points in bonuses, +2 for MWM. Not unreasonable for a mid level character with Str, magic items, buffing, PA, etc. Let's add a pick as well.

Scimitar with IC: ((1d6+2+10)x14/20)+((1d6+2+10)x2x6/20)= 20.15 per hit.
Scimitar with MWM: ((1d6+4+10)x17/20)+((1d6+4+10)x2x3/20)= 20.125 per hit
Pick with IC: ((1d6+2+10)x18/20)+((1d6+2+10)x4x2/20)= 20.15
Pick with MWM: ((1d6+4+10)x19/20)+((1d6+4+10)x4x1/20)=20.125
Longsword with IC: (1d8+2+10)x16/20)+((1d8+2+10)x2x4/20)= 19.8 per hit
Longsword with MWM: (1d8+4+10)x18/20)+((1d8+4+10)x2x2/20)=20.35 per hit

A bit of a wash, really. It depends on your weapon and whether or not you're having trouble hitting your foes. If so, choose MWM; otherwise it depends on your choice of weapon - and style of play. I'd suggest that this shows that the feats are pitched at the same level. MWM has the advantage of versatility, but how often does that really come into play?

The surprise is how badly the old Longsword fares.

 

[Victim]

(assuming all attacks hit)

Whoops.

 

[Quartz]

Whoops.

You'll note that the calculations are for single attacks, and that the comment is in parentheses.

 

[Nifft]

PHB2. Choose a weapon for which you have Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization. When wielding any weapon that does the same type of damage (slashing, piercing, or bludgeoning), you gain a +2 bonus on attacks and damage.

Wow.

I think Improved Weapon Focus just ran past me crying.

-- N

 

[SlagMortar]

Quartz, your calculations (as far as I can tell) ignore the +2 bonus to hit granted by melee weapon mastery. That benefit is actually better than the +2 to damage. You should at least include a +2 to damage that one would get from power attacking for 2 points to reflect the damage. Doing so would still under-approximate the benefit of +2 to hit because it is rarely beneficial to power attack when it is a 1 for 1 trade off (i.e. with a one handed weapon), but it would give MWM the advantage by 2 more points per attack.

If you compared with two handed weapons like Stalker0 did, then you should give the +4 to damage from power attacking for 2.

Also, improved critical obviously only helps against creatures vulnerable to critical hits, so if the math says its a wash then it is better to take melee weapon mastery.

 

[Geoff Watson]

Melee Weapon Mastery is much, much better than Improved Critical.

IC is about as good as Weapon Focus (depending on weapon), and MWM is a lot better than WF.

Geoff.

 

[Quartz]

Quartz, your calculations (as far as I can tell) ignore the +2 bonus to hit granted by melee weapon mastery.

In the first set of calculations, I also ignored the +1 bonus from Weapon Focus, bonuses from Str, magic, etc - all other bonuses, in fact, apart from Weapon Specialisation. This was deliberate.

In the second set of calculations, I gave each +10 in bonuses from all sources. I think that covered it.

You'll also have read my conclusion, right?

 

[Slaved]

Improved critical is very much like having keen on your weapon. Keen is a +1 bonus for a weapon but if you run the numbers for it and take into account that sometimes you will have more crit range than you can use and some creatures are immune to criticals it is worth significantly less than having got a straight +1 instead.

Since a +1 bonus for a weapon is the same as +1 to attack and damage and improved critical is basically the same as keen which is a +1 bonus then since weapon mastery adds +2 to attack and damage then mastery wins hands down.

 

[SlagMortar]

In the first set of calculations, I also ignored the +1 bonus from Weapon Focus, bonuses from Str, magic, etc - all other bonuses, in fact, apart from Weapon Specialisation. This was deliberate.

In the second set of calculations, I gave each +10 in bonuses from all sources. I think that covered it.

No, it doesn't cover it. Your calculations compare the value of a +2 bonus to damage versus a doubled threat range. Ignoring weapon focus is fine because both characters are assumed to have weapon focus.

Suppose I wanted to compare improved weapon specialization (+2 bonus to damage) with melee weapon mastery (+2 bonus to hit and damage). If I used your method, they would be shown to provide the exact same benefit. Obviously melee weapon mastery is more powerful, but if you ignore the attack bonus provided by melee weapon mastery they appear the same.

 

[Klaus]

I'll provide the stats, you guys do the math, since that's not really my forté.

Human Fighter 8 (Imp. Critical)
BAB +8, +4 Str, +1 WF, +2 magic = +15 attack
Scimitar +15/+10 melee (1d6 +4 Str +2 WS +2 magic = 1d6+8 / 15-20/x2)
One out of every 3 successful attacks is a threat, for 2d6+16 damage.
According to the MM, the average AC is creature's CR+13. In this case, it's 21. So this character hits 75% of his primary attacks and 50% of secondary attacks.

Human Fighter 8 (MWM)
BAB +8, +4 Str, +1 WF, +2 magic, +2 MWM = +17 attack
Scimitar +17/+12 melee (1d6 +4 Str +2 WS +2 magic +2 MWM = 1d6+10 / 18-20/x2)
One out of every 6 successful attacks is a threat, for 2d6+20 damage.
According to the MM, the average AC is creature's CR+13. In this case, it's 21. So this character hits 85% of his primary attacks and 60% of secondary attacks.