Weapon Master

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Playing through HotU with my halfling Fighter/Weapon Master (12/13) dual wielding kukri's, I've been seeing some incredible damage -- the Eye Tyrant fell in seconds, as did the Valsharess (no buffing with either, no generating the anti-magic area). Only the undead dragon gave me problems (immune to crits).

So it got me thinking ... is there a better combination for Weapon Master? So I plugged everything in to Excel and used the following as variables:

Level (minimum level was 15, max 40)
Enemy AC
Strength
Feat Bonuses
Weapon Bonuses (keen, but not elemental or massive crit)

In my calculations the PC was hasted and had improved critical, weapon focus (duh) and weapon specialization feats. At epic levels, epic weapon focus, epic weapon specialization, and epic prowess were added (and epic superior weapon focus for WM's at 13th level or above).

Plugging all these together (along with BAB) gave me average hits per round and average damage per round. Yes, I read where the greatsword hits the hardest on average and the scythe has highest critical hit, but I was interested in the damage per round, not per hit.

In general, the Weapon Master causes 50% more damage than a generic Fighter. The top damage producer in the 15-20 level range is the Monk(X)/Fighter(4)/Weapon Master (7) dual wielding kamas. But by 25th level the monk killing maching is doing a mere 430 point of damage per round against an AC30 opponent (not counting elemental damage from upgrades) as compared to my little halfling who does 490 damage per round.

The top damage producer for a fighter/weapon master was either the scimitar or rapier dual wielded (and yes I included the additional minuses to hit for not having a light offhand weapon) at just over 500 damage per round. As comparison, the greatsword was at 423 and the scythe was at 455 per round. The rapier or scimitar is a nice two-handed weapon for small WM's netting 460 per round.

The basic order for medium-sized fighter/weapon masters was:

Scimitar/Rapier dual wielded
Kukri dual wielded
Katana/Bastard Sword dual wielded
Scythe

In fact, the scythe was the only two-handed weapon that outperformed most dual wielded weapons. The only poor choices for dual wielding are: club, mace, dire mace, light hammer, sickle, and kama for a non-monk -- all of these are exceptionally bad choices for the WM (worse still are most single handed weapons that are not dualled). The greatsword was the second best two-handed weapon (not counting the dual bladed weapons) and came in at 15th place overall in damage per round (out of 30) -- it performed equivalent to a dualled dagger or hand axe.

The greatsword does have a moment where it shines as a choice: low strength and magic bonuses against high AC enemies. Once the total strength and magic bonuses exceed 5, the greatsword loses the top spot.

Edit: Spelling.

[ August 24, 2007, 17:48: Message edited by: T2Bruno ]

 

Nice work. This tempts me to actually try building my samurai charachter: fighter/wm dual-wielding katana+wakizashi(scimitar).

 

Wouldn't it be better to dual wield katanas or scimitars? Katanas and scimitars are two different weapons.

What about the dwarven battleaxe? I would have thought it had a nice damage output if dualwielded.

I've been trying a Bard/RDD/WM build with maxed out STR (damage bonus as high as possible with items, buffs and songs) and wielding a scythe is it going to compare to these Fighter/Monk builds?

 

Because those are the two weapons worn by a samurai, although I don't think they dualwielded alot. A katana is mostly used as two-handed, but since you don't get that option in nwn, and dual-wielding is cooler, I'd take the katana/scimitar dual.

True, the offhand weapon would have to wait for epic levels before getting the wm bonusses, but since it only gets max two hits it's not that big an issue. It is inferior to only using one type of weapon, but it suits my image of a samurai. I like to balance rp with pg.

 

Nice work, T2Bruno. I feel I should point out that it's dual wielded, though. Welding's a rather different activity. Anyway...

I've tried the dual kukri WM build and it really is awesome. If it's not crit immune, it's dead. I imagine that a rapier or scimitar would be equally awesome, though your AB will suffer a little. Interesting build idea for the future.

A dual wielding katana WM is pretty awesome too, though I must admit that I only created this build for the sole opportunity to wield that awesome WM-only katana you'll find in HotU.

It has the same base damage as the bastard sword and katana, but apparently having a wider critical range outweighs the increased critical multiplier.

 

Having a wider crit range outdoing a high crit multiple actually makes sense in it's own way.

Yes the higher multiplier means more damage when it finally happens. but having it happen more regularly and more reliable. That ends up Pushing up the average damage by a lot more.

 

Actually, Starwalker, that's not completely true. 18-20/2x is the same as 19-20/3x. You get the same average damage in both cases. As such, the crit range increase is not strictly better than the increase in multiplier. It all depends on how much the increase in multiplier or range is relative to the common base. The one that is higher relatively to the base is the best increase starting from that base.

This just to point out that it's not that logical as you seem to think it is. However, you are right, but not for the reason you claim.

There is a factor that isn't taken into consideration in the above: external modifications. There is only one increase in crit multiplier possible in the game, and that is only +1 and through the weapon master abilities. However, there are multiple ways to increase the range, they stack and are actually based in size on the existing range. So, the multiplier increase is most effective, the smaller the starting multiplier is and the larger the starting range is. The range increase scales with the base range, and as such is also benefitting from a bigger starting range, but also benefitting from a higher starting multiplier. As such, the multiplier criteria are contradicting while the range criteria are reinforcing each other. As such a larger base range is preferable over a larger multiplier, when considering all other things equal.

 

Meatdog -- you would do better to build a dual wielding scimitar samurai (or ranger ). Critical hits with the offhand add up. If I have time I'll work up the math for that as well....

I did take into account external modifications -- by assuming the PC would take all the most damaging options and have a keen weapon. And, as I mentioned, the WM averages 50% more damage than the pure fighter. It would be interesting to see how (Un)Holy Smite adds to that, or backstab, or rage, or racial enemy, or ... well, I guess I have even more math to do in my free time.

By the way, there was no challenge in Cania for my little weapon master (she dual wielded Hatred and Strife, both are keen, had acid damage added and maxed to +10 by Rizolvir). None of the Guardians (or imprisoned generals for that matter) were able to take her below 50% hit points before dying. I was expecting a challenge when I saw Grimnaw, Koth, Balpheron, Maugrim, and Crimson -- but they were all dead in ~45 seconds. Grimnaw didn't even last 10 seconds, the tiny WM killed him before I could even target the spellcasters.

On to Mephistopheles.

 

Damn you, T2! Damn you with a stick!!

Now you've inspired me to reinstall NWN1...gurgle. You and your math.

Edit - have you ever tried an axe-wielding Weapon Master? I would think a Dwarven Waraxe in the main hand and a handaxe in the off would be a decent combo...

 

Biam Asherwill, halfling Fighter/Weapon Master (12/16), just beat Mephistophiles. I had Deekin and Aribeth with me (nobody died -- except the arch-devil himself). First attempt, only used one heal potion during the fight. I was a little disappointed with how easy he was to kill.

 

Just ran my Monk/Fighter/WM through HotU. Quite the powerhouse. I've found that he's especially strong vs. crit immune creatures. 10 attacks a round will do that for you. Especially the dracolich went down fast. Never seen anything quite like it: he ate it before even getting off a single breath attack; something not many of my characters can boast about. Still did a reload, since Valen saw fit to get himself trapped by two bone golems and then didn't think to fight back.

The demi-lich was beat down in record time in similar fashion.

Grimgnaw and his little troop gave me a bit more trouble. Balpheron's acid sheath got me killed quite quickly the first time, but once I got that right on the third try, the rest of 'em fell quickly enough.

The third and last guardian usually takes me quite a while to kill, but not this time. He only teleported once, never got the time to teleport away a second time.

Mephy... well, he doesn't even deserve mention.

One thing I love about this build is the monk's speed bonus. Once you've played a hasted lvl 20 monk, everything else seems to move at a snails pace.

 

I decided to make a Fighter/Blackguard/WM build, which used a scythe. And I can now say that a scythe in combination with a WM is great fun. It's like having a insta-kill spell that has unlimited uses a day.

I first ran my character through Tales of Artera, in which he ended up with a +6 keen scythe with +1d6 sonic damage. This set up would average at about 180 damage on a critical hit. Anything that got hit with a crit died instantaneously. Which made the end fight with the two end-bosses (undead casters) most memorable. Especially once I discovered that one of the bosses wasn't crit immune, as you'd expect undead to be. One critical later, and there was only one end boss left. Glee!

Running him through HotU later was great fun too, with most fights vs. non-crit. immune critters ending as soon as I got a critical hit off. The first guardian isn't crit. immune, which was funny. Critical hit -> change into fairy -> immediately change back -> change into earth elemental.