damage calculator?

[Bolo_Grubb]

is there a damage calculator out there somewhere that allows me to put in the monster and the weapon so I can see what weapon will work best on that monster?

[diamabel]

is there a damage calculator out there somewhere that allows me to put in the monster and the weapon so I can see what weapon will work best on that monster?

I guess there have been some posts concerning that, but I cannot provide a link. Nonetheless it should be possible to calculate the damage by yourself.

1) Standard damage (min/max/average): take your strength modifier and your weapon description to figure out the damage on a standard hit.
2) crit damage (min/max/average): similar as above


These will provide you theroretical damage values. To get a more realistic picture you have to consider how often you will hit. For this information you will need to know the AC of your opponent (see DDOwiki). Dunno how good you are at math, but simple probability calculus should get you going.


Maybe you'll need some more information on how the rules behind the scene too. The basic procedure is as follows:

1) see if you hit or miss (your attack bonus + all modifiers + 1d20 > opponets AC + all his/her buffs)
2) if you rolled a natural 20 you have a chance on a critical hit.
2.1) see if you can confirm your critical hit (another attack roll including modifiers to confirm criticals)
3) determine the damage depending whether or not you hit critically or not. (roll the damage according to your weapons + strength + other modifiers)


edited
I didn't depict it all in detail. But in principle it works this way (some weapons and feats/enhancements improve your chance on critical hits). There exist better tools than Excel to calculate this (e.g. Mathematica), If you can stash all the informations into a single formula even http://www.wolframalpha.com/ might give you a bell curve diagram for the damage range (try typing 3d6). I hope that helps a little.

[Kinerd]

A point of clarification: a roll of 20 will always give a chance at a critical hit, but some weapons have a threat range larger than 20. For instance, a basic longsword has a threat range of 19-20, which means that you get a chance at a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.

To elaborate on another point: one factor in your "attack bonus" is your Base Attack Bonus, which for almost all melee characters actually has 3 values - the base, base + 5, and base +10 depending on which attack in your animation chain you are on. If you are missing with your base BAB, you will miss significantly less with BAB + 10, requiring you to have values for how often you use each attack in the animation chain to get an exact answer.

Two additional points to consider: there are quite a few monsters that are fortified against or outright immune to critical hits, such as undead. This drastically alters one's choice in weaponry. There are also quite a few monsters that have damage reduction (DR), such as vampires. There are very few publicly available DR values, which makes getting an exact answer impossible without empirically establishing what DR you are up against (which is pretty easy to do during a fight but impossible to do before it).

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In general, if you are dealing with a creature against which you can obtain critical hits, your best weapon will be the one with the highest value of (multiplier - 1) * (threat range). If you are dealing with a creature that has significant fortification or critical immunity, your best weapon will be the one with the highest base damage or the best flares (if you have a weapon that does significant flaring damage). If you are dealing with a creature that has significant DR, your best weapon will be the one that defeats that DR, if one exists and you have it. There are other more complicated situations, but these rules of thumb should keep you in good shape for deciding which weapon will give you the most weapon damage.

[Red_Knight]

And sometimes, the best weapon is the one that will actually hit the enemy. If your fighting wraiths and your only ghost touch weapon is a dagger that does 1d4+1 base, this may be your best weapon vs the wraith. Not because it does great damage. It doesn't. But because it will actually do damage. Your +5 wowsers sword of ikillju does no good if it can't land the blow due to Incorporeal..