Has anyone proposed changing the way # of blows is handled?

[Speusippus]

It seems to me that the way things are presently, the lightest weapons are generally the best weapons. This is because the bonus to dam that generally exists on weapons once you've gotten a little deeper into the game tends to drown out the effect of the weapon's inherent damage, meaning that a dagger with a plus 10 to dam will be a lot better to use than a broad sword (or whatever) with a plus ten to dam. That plus ten gets multiplied because of multiple blows far more times with the dagger than with the broad sword.

So given the choice between a light weapon and a heavy weapon, typically the light weapon is going to be favored.

This seems wrong to me. But are there others who agree? If so what alternatives have been proposed?

[nobody]

there's been an amazing amount of discussion on this issue, i'm not sure what takk has planned, there are many variants which used O style combat, cause OAngband was the first to use it, and O is completely different and heavier weapons are better, i think cause they crit more or something. someone will reply in more depth shortly, i'm sure

[Malak Darkhunter]

As it stands now, it seems that lighter weapons get more #blows, and heavier weapons take more strength, dex, to get more blows, and the difference modifier is the damage output of the weapon. Realisticaly in most cases it seems that lighter weapons with more # blows can cause more damage overall, or at least be equall somewhat to the heavier weapon. The difference is that you have more chances to land a hit, with a lighter weapon and more # of blows. Hate to say it but the lighter weapon wins in my book. You can pick up a truly damaging Executioners sword (4d5) and only get 4 blows, or you can wield a rapier and get 6 blows (1d6). Mathematically-
(4d5)=20x4=80 or (1d6)x6=36. So you *Could* do more damage with a heavier weapon *If* all blows connect. But that damage output is small compared to fighting something like a great storm wyrm.


I screwed up my own mathematics, had to redo that a little bit

[Hariolor]

The other problem with a single blow that consumes an entire turn is that if it misses, there is no marginal benefit. However, all else being equal, landing 50% of blows with a light weapon is still better than landing 0% of blows with a heavier weapon on any given turn. While over the course of several battles the law of averages will play out in terms of total damage dealt - angband combat is a game of decisive blows, not statistical attrition.

I believe there have been serious noises made recently about implementing a "fractional blows" system - which to my understanding would create more opportunity for variability in the number of blows/round, while still likely favoring lighter weapons overall (unless damage and to-hit are changed along with it)

Personally, I am in the camp that believes a modified system based on O combat would be welcome - but since my coding skills are slightly weaker than those of a clever parrot, I don't expect my opinion to carry much weight

[nobody]

also i think the bonuses to damage are what really put the light weapons over in terms of damage. in previous case if the weapons were +10 then the rapier would do another 60 damage vs another 40 if all hits connected

[Malak Darkhunter]

also i think the bonuses to damage are what really put the light weapons over in terms of damage. in previous case if the weapons were +10 then the rapier would do another 60 damage vs another 40 if all hits connected

That's a really good point there.

[Netbrian]

Maybe to-damage bonuses (and heck, AC bonuses) should be multiplicative, rather than additive. So you might be able to get, say, a bonus that multiplies your damage by 2 or so. That would be much better on heavier weapons with larger damage die, but you might not get as many blows with them.

[Derakon]

That's how Oangband works: +damage is instead "deadliness" and acts as a multiplier. The annoying thing about it is that it's pretty opaque. Angband's system has the advantage of being very simple.

What I would support would be capping +to-damage at the damage dice (or at half the damage dice, or whatever). So a 1d4 dagger could only be enchanted up to +4, while an executioner's sword could be enchanted up to +20. You'd probably have to combine it with broadening the range of damage dice -- push the Blade of Chaos up to 6d8, make the mainline "heavy" weapons (lead-filled mace, pike, halberd, etc.) in the 4d4-4d6 range, and leave daggers et al moping down around 1d4. And that in turn might require tweaking monster hitpoints. But I think it would work.

[Nick]

That's how Oangband works: +damage is instead "deadliness" and acts as a multiplier. The annoying thing about it is that it's pretty opaque.

Would this:

a Dagger (1d4) (+3, +20%)

be better?

[Pete Mack]

@Nick: No.

Follow the "it does Y damage vs fire-vulnerable monsters and X damage vs normal monsters" from 3.1.x, and you will have a useful description.

[Derakon]

Nick: my main problem is with ancillary boosts to deadliness. Calculating how much a Ring of Damage adds to your damage output is straightforward; a Ring of Deadliness is considerably trickier.

One of the things I really appreciate about Angband's damage system is that, for all its nonintuitive results, the actual calculations are very simple. There's no need to say "Trust me" when it comes time to determine how much damage you deal.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I haven't looked at the Angband code, but in the old Moria code, which was the original basis, weapon weight was a major factor in turning a hit into a good/great/superb hit. If that still holds, the 'average damage per round' computations become considerably trickier. It may well actually be that the average damage over 20 rounds would be the same; the multiple swings would give much more *consistent* damage, while the big heavy weapon would be more likely to *SPLAT* something really fast at times. It's 10d10 vs. 1d100; the averages are essentially the same, but the 10d10 gives 45-65 the majority (mean is 55, stddev is basically 10) of the time, while the 1d100 is all over the place.

[bron]

Umoria. Wow. That takes me back. Been 20years since I was beta testing 5.5.x ... Anyway, yes, the weapon weight influences the likelyhood of an extra-damage hit, both in umoria and in angband. And the way Jim Wilson chose to deal with the problem in umoria was the same as what Derakon proposed: the +Dam enchantment on a weapon was capped at the maximum normal damage of the weapon (e.g. 4 for a 1d4 weapon, and 20 for a 4d5 weapon). And IIRC the chance of succeeding with an enchantment was (1 - currentEnchant/maxEnchant).

I always thought that that solution was pretty good: starting out, it was still the case that the light weapons were prefered, but as you advanced there was a simple but powerful incentive to move to heavier weapons.
But this change was made to umoria just after the point at which angband branched off from it, so never made it into the angband code base.


(Humm .. I just checked, and I see that my name is still in the ERRORS file of the 5.5.2 umoria distribution .. nice to be remembered.)

[Nick]

Nick: my main problem is with ancillary boosts to deadliness. Calculating how much a Ring of Damage adds to your damage output is straightforward; a Ring of Deadliness is considerably trickier.

Of course. I thought that was too simple a fix.

One of the things I really appreciate about Angband's damage system is that, for all its nonintuitive results, the actual calculations are very simple. There's no need to say "Trust me" when it comes time to determine how much damage you deal.

Agreed. One of the reasons I don't push for O-combat in V (except to wind people up ) is that I like V-combat, and I think it's good that there are multiple variants with each.

@Pete - the damage calculations are already there if you inspect a weapon. Putting them in the dump is something I may have to do, too ...

(/me pushes back FA1.1 release a few more days)

[andrewdoull]

No. No one has ever proposed changing the way # of blows works. Ever. You are the first.