Eldritch Tempest Wildly Different than Documentation

[Kinerd]

Eldritch Tempest says it does +5[W], +10 Critical Threat Range, +3 Critical Multiplier.

It is currently doing +10[W], +20 Critical Threat Range, +6 Critical Multiplier.

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I had been struck for awhile about how well concentrated the values for Eldritch Tempest were, which suggested its multiplier was higher than documented - since critical hits aren't actually "multiplied" but rolled again, rolling any given die many more times will end up bunching observed values together. So I took a character with Eldritch Tempest, IC: Slashing, Improved Knight's Transformation, and no other modifiers to critical threat or multiplier and tested in the Waterworks with five weapons:
a Barovian falchion - 1.5[2d4] + 36 and 15-20 x3,
a +1 quarterstaff of everbright - [1d6] + 32 and 20 x3,
a +1 heavy pick - [1d6] + 21 and 20 x5,
a greatsword - [2d6] + 31 and 17-20 x3, and
a +1 club - [1d6] + 21 and 20 x3.
The character also has 2 melee power with two handed weapons.
With at least 11 hits each, I observed the following averages on critical hits compared to the predicted:

actual	pred	weapon
861	419	barovian fal
644	324	+1 qstaff of everbright
657	336	+1 heavy pick
988	447	greatsword
539	252	+1 club

I also observed only critical hits before confirmation. Even the quarterstaff with a cool range of 20 managed to threaten on a roll of 3(!!!). I didn't happen to see any rolls of 2 but it beggars credulity they wouldn't crit too. Notably, I did observe six cases where rolls of 1 on the critical confirmation roll with various weapons resulted in ordinary hits. I did not include those in this analysis.

O.K., so the bonus threat is definitely not functioning as documented since (before confirmation which can auto-fail on 1) it's effectively auto-crit, but things are off in damage too. No matter what the +[W] is, the ratio of heavy pick to club will be governed entirely by multiplier because they have exactly the same base damage and bonus. If we assume that it is an additive bonus to multiplier of the form +X, we only need to find the closest approximation for...
(5 + X) / (3 + X) = 657 / 539 = about 1.22
...and that X happens to be 6, because 11 / 9 = 1.222 = about 1.22

Great! We can also look at the ratio of greatsword to quarterstaff since those have the same multiplier and different [W] to see what kind of +[w} we're getting. This time...
(7 + 31 + 7 * Y) / (3.5 + 32 + 3.5 * Y) = 988 / 644 = about 1.53
...and that Y happens to be 10, because 108 / 70.5 = about 1.53

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And just to make sure, let's plug in +10[W] +6 Critical Multiplier and see what values our new model expects:

actual	pred	weapon
861	858	barovian fal
644	635	+1 qstaff of everbright
657	655	+1 heavy pick
988	991	greatsword
539	536	+1 club

Not bad at all!

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I have no idea if this is intended. It's enormously suspicious that each value is exactly double the documented value, of course! For what it's worth I think it would be good to have it this way, that neutralizes the advantage of broader crit range since Improved Knight's Transformation so heavily favors weapons with it, and this way it's not a no-brainer to get the best crit range weapon as an eldritch knight. It's probably still the best choice because of how long the cooldown is, but still.

I've updated the wiki to reflect this research. I don't have a sorcerer EK so I can't test with them. It seems really unlikely it would be any different, but I have included that caveat in the wiki.

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Appendix of the damage by hit:

875	869	835	881	860	851	865	891	843	840	865					
628	644	637	654	632	632	657	643	651	681	650	656	640	631	639	631
673	652	638	646	669	664	663	675	667	645	634					
1031	953	981	989	1026	988	956	972	978	976	984	1027	1011	966		
535	526	520	544	558	544	547	554	529	554	513

[Mindos]

Eldritch Tempest says it does +5[W], +10 Critical Threat Range, +3 Critical Multiplier.

It is currently doing +10[W], +20 Critical Threat Range, +6 Critical Multiplier.

I have no idea if this is intended. It's enormously suspicious that each value is exactly double the documented value, of course!

Very nice, thank you for testing this. It's hard to say if its working as intended or not. The devs could easily say they meant for this but forgot to update the tooltips. This reminds me of when they nerfed Monks after Ravenloft came out. There were two exploits in play at the time, one of which made every hit from an equppied Monk a critical hit, and the other which allowed glamored armor to qualify for a ravenloft set. The devs (in my humble opinion) still nerfed handwraps monks from orbit based on these faultly numbers. So seeing these doubled Eldritch numbers makes me fear another heavy handed nerf.

Then again, maybe it *is* all as intended. People like seeing big numbers, and they are squishy(ish). Who knows? And I think that's the bigger problem. It's a shame we just don't know whats working as intended or not.