Want to know the exact expected damage for your fighter? (DND 3e)

[robgmsft]

I've written a pretty cool program that can calculate the exact expected (statistical average) damage for a melee fighter with any base attack, strength bonus, weapon, and most feats and weapon magic abilities. I think that this can be very helpful when discussing game balance. To get you started, here is the expected damage for a 6th level fighter using a +1 longsword with weapon focus, weapon specialization, power attack, and a strength of 18:

Against AC 15 use power attack 2 for 20.0 expected damage.
Against AC 16 use power attack 1 for 18.6 expected damage.
Against AC 17 use power attack 1 for 17.2 expected damage.
Against AC 18 use power attack 1 for 15.8 expected damage.
Against AC 19 use power attack 0 for 14.5 expected damage.
Against AC 20 use power attack 0 for 13.3 expected damage.
Against AC 21 use power attack 0 for 12.0 expected damage.
Against AC 22 use power attack 0 for 10.8 expected damage.
Against AC 23 use power attack 0 for 9.5 expected damage.
Against AC 24 use power attack 0 for 8.2 expected damage.
Against AC 25 use power attack 0 for 7.0 expected damage.

The program is actually pretty intricate, taking into account multiple hits, optimizing power attack, 20 as an always hit, 1 as an always miss, critical range flattening (if you only hit on an 18, you won't get a crit threat on a 17 even if that's in your "crit range")

Post a character type (base attack, strength, dex, feats, and weapon) and I'll give you the results.

I'll check back soon.

-robg

 

[Balgus]

that is pretty nifty. How does this program work? Are you gonna host it somewhere where we can all have acess? or is it an exclusvie thing where you give us a free sample now to get us hooked, and then Jakk up the price?

Just wondering.

 

[robgmsft]

LOL, it's written in visual C# .net

If people like it/care I'll be happy to post it, to be honest I don't really know how to post it well. It's in an exe format that requires the .net framework. If the thread goes well I'll post it for free.

How it works? Basically it calculates statistical damage based on a whole bunch of formulas.

For example, the fighter above at AC 20:

First attack:
Base average damage of 11.5 (4.5 for the longsword + 2 for weapon spec + 1 for magic damage + 4 for strength).
Crit range 10% and average additional damage on crit = 11.5 (same as above)
to hit total = +12 which gives a hit chance of 65%
Calculating through hit chance, crit chance, and crit hit chance gives an average damage of 8.2225 for the first swing

Second swing is same as first but with -5 to hit, so avg damage = 5.06

total damage for both swings = 13.3 (rounded to the nearest tenth)

 

[robgmsft]

To add fuel to the fire, here is a different 6th level fighter with:

weapon focus longsword
weapon spec longsword
weapon focus shortsword
weapon spec shortsword
two weapon fighting
ambidexterity
power attack

+1 longsword/+1 shortsword

Against AC 20: Power Attack 0, expected damage = 15.9

focus/spec/power attack and a +1 greatsword

Against AC 20: Power Attack 0, expected damage = 18.5

 

[robgmsft]

Here's one more 6th level fighter for ya.

Strength 22 (18 start, half-orc, gauntlets of ogre power)
+1 Flaming Mercurial Greatsword
focus/spec/power attack

AC 15 PA 1 = 43.7
AC 20 PA 0 = 31.7
AC 25 PA 0 = 19.0

Mmmm..... munchkin

 

[tarchon]

http://www.public.asu.edu/~tarchon/munchkin.html

There are a couple others around as well.

 

[robgmsft]

cool! Thanks for the link =]

Playing around with mine, it seems that 2 weapon fighting is very underpowered. It very occasionally outperforms one two-handed weapon, but given that you have to spend twice as much money and more than double the feats it's more trouble than it's worth.

I would allow focus and spec feats to apply to both weapons and give the ranger a feat available at 4th that adds +2/+2 to two weapon fighting.

Thoughts?

 

[robgmsft]

Also, one thing the web site doesn't show is the impact of extra damage that doesn't effect crits or only effects crits (sneak attack, burst)

Playing around with burst, two elementals is always a better bet, I would up burst damage to 1d8/1d12 to balance it.

 

[Jeph]

With Ki Critical, he has a thread range of 16-20
With Increased Multiplier, he has a multiplier of x5
He has 2 burst enchantments, Flaming and Shocking
Ambidexterity, Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, and Flurry of blows when in a Ki Frenzy.

Does anyone know a site that could calculate this ?

I had a spreadsheet that could calculate this guy's damage, it included range flattening and burst enchantments, but not 1=miss, 20=hit.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

cool! Thanks for the link =]

Playing around with mine, it seems that 2 weapon fighting is very underpowered. It very occasionally outperforms one two-handed weapon, but given that you have to spend twice as much money and more than double the feats it's more trouble than it's worth.

I would allow focus and spec feats to apply to both weapons and give the ranger a feat available at 4th that adds +2/+2 to two weapon fighting.

Thoughts?

Uh.. No! Your 2 weapon fighting program probably doesn't count the effects of sneak attack, or weapons that do extra dice (flaming burst, etc). Add those back in and suddenly 2 weapon fighting looks a lot better.

Giving the ranger that feat would make Ranger/Rogues over powered.