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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 187783" data-attributes="member: 2486">The Keen vs. bonus argument is dependent on how much base damage you inflict, the ACs of your opponent, and the possibility of DR.In most cases, and when applied to 'best crit' items (x4 or 18-20/x2), it effectively scales the amount of damage you do by 3/40 (assuming a 50/50 chance of confirming threats).  Thus, if you do an average damage of 13.03 or more, then Keen is better than bonus in terms of sheer damage-dishing capabilities.  Thus, a Keen Falchion in the hands of a raging half-orc barbarian is a great asset. This does not take into account the impact of 'to hit', however, and assuming 50/50 chances of hitting, a +1 to hit effectively increases damage by 10%.  Thus, average damage will need to be 14.3 or greater to make Keen the stronger weapon.However, this is counter-balanced by the 'more damage in one hit' effect.  This effect is basically the theory that inflicting more damage in a single hit is more effective than an identical amount of damage in multiple hits- both in terms of time-saving and the fact that most clerics heal comrades when they reach below a certain HP threshold.  The numerical value for this is hard to quantify.For all these, though, the parable is identical.  Big, high-damage weapons with big threat ranges (falchion, mercurial greatsword and the like) are better off Keen.  Smaller, low-damage weapons (dagger etc.) are better with a flat +1 bonus.</blockquote>

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