Weapon damage. Just a thought on a perceived problem.

With the rules as written, small fast weapons are superior in many ways to slower, larger weapons. From a player perspective, you get more actions per turn of the clock, which means that you get to DO more. For example, my fiancee plays a Dagger fighter as a secondary, and I play a Flamberge-wielder as my primary. She hits every 6 ticks for d4(d8) damage (avg 28 damage/12 ticks) while I hit for d10(d8) (20 damage/12 ticks). She also get 2x the number of attack opportunities that I have, which means that the likelihood of her doing damage is greater than me. This is also good against minions who only have a single stamina and wound, so she can clear them out WAY faster than I can.

That being said, there are mitigating factors. Larger weapons have qualities such as Impact and tricks like Mighty Swing which allow you to do more damage, evening out the damage per tick (DPT) of the weapon which many of the smaller weapons lack, and the larger weapons are better at knocking their way through heavily armoured targets. Using the above examples, the dagger would do an average of 7 damage per hit, while the Flamberge would do an average of 10. That means with an enemy of AR 5, the Dagger will only get 8 damage through/12 ticks, while the Flamberge would get 10.

The bigger weapons get even more terrifying when it comes to the “Hard Core” rules which are being enforced at BI’s (or, that is what PCI WANTS to do). In these rules (presented in an appendix of the Codex of Heroes) if the amount of damage taken bypasses the Fortitude Defence of the target, they take a wound. At the last BI that I was at, the only person at the table who could consistently do this was my Flamberge-wielder (and then through the use of Smite abilities and spells). In this regard, smaller weapons become significantly less likely to knock someone out for the count.

Hey guys, thanks for the replies. It’s good to know about the other factors. It’s good that player to have meaningful choices rather than everyone running around with daggers. In D&D it’s pretty much the opposite “I want the weapon that does the most damage.”

BTW, Nierite what is BI?

Thanks.

A BI is a Battle Interactive. They are generally only held at large conventions (Gen Con, Origins, etc). Basically think a room full of tables, all working towards the same objective.

A good example from a number of years ago was a BI involving an army seiging a city in Altheria. The heroes were trying to protect the city. Low level tables were given jobs like holding the walls and putting out fires, while the high level tables were doing reconnaissance missions behind enemy lines. If one group failed a mission, it put a direct strain on the other groups (the coordinators would actually add enemies to your table if an adjacent table wiped).

They really are a great experience. If you can get yourself to a major convention, I highly recommend it.

So AR 5 or 6 is the great equalizer huh?

Is your chart for exceptional weapons?

That assumes basic dice rolls without modifiers or explosions for simplicity of math. Do exceptional, the standard by which players are held to. Exceptional or it didn’t happen.

For exceptional weapons, it’s easy:

      d6   d8   d10  d12  Spd
d4     7    8    9   10   3
d6     8    9   10   11   3
d8     9   10   11   12   4
d10   10   11   12   13   5
d12   11   12   13   14   6

DPT:
AR0   d6     d8     d10    d12
d4    2.33   2.67   3.00   3.00
d6    2.67   3.00   3.33   3.67
d8    2.25   2.50   2.75   3.00
d10   2.00   2.20   2.40   2.60
d12   1.84   2.00   2.17   2.33

AR6   d6     d8     d10    d12
d4    0.33   0.67   1.00   1.33
d6    0.67   1.00   1.33   1.67
d8    0.75   1.00   1.25   1.50
d10   0.80   1.00   1.20   1.40
d12   1.00   1.00   1.17   1.33

I’m too tired right now to work up exploding dice but I wouldn’t expect it to change the results significantly…

Factoring in exceptional DPT is still better on faster weapons until AR8 I believe.

There are a lot of factors out there. More than just DPT off the back. Factor in talent damage, rune damage, Maneuver damage, and weapon qualities such as Armor Piercing (note there are speed 5 base AP weapons, Mace), one-hitting commons with d12 weapons, and more, and things change up. Although you get more bang for your tick with slower weapons and maneuvers, maneuvers still help faster weapons out DPT a big one.

The most important factor to weapon choice is of course RP. You wield a scythe if you are a Nerothian, you wield a gladius or spear if you are a legionnaire. Some paths are better than others and certain path members are going to wield specific weapons.