D20 weapon comparisons
From AJS.COM
These d20 weapon comparisons are an attempt to analyze the effectiveness of the various weapons used in Dungeons & Dragons.
Contents |
Overview
I took all of the weapons in the d20 SRD and compared their damage output. To do this, I factored out attack and armor values into a single value: relative AC. This number is the attack bonus of the attacker minus the armor bonus of the defender. In equal-CR encounters this will tend to hover around 0, with higher values against poorly armored casters and lower values against well armored melee combatants.
For each relative AC value between -10 and +10, I then ran 100,000 simulation attacks with each weapon. The results are summarized by weapon class below:
 Two-handed weapons |
 One-handed weapons |
 Light weapons |
 Exotic weapons |
 Double weapons |
Methods
The results were tallied as simple averages, and all of the standard rules were used. This included automatic hits/misses on 20/1, critical threat ranges, etc.
Two-handed
The best two-handed weapons are greatsword and greataxe. The greatsword beats out greataxe by a small amount, but either can be used to reasonable effect.
One handed vs. two-handed
Comparing the best two-handed weapon (the greatsword, which barely edges out the greataxe) to the best primary hand and light off-hand weapons, there is just no comparison without using exotics. Greatsword is easily the best weapon for pure damage in this respect, especially when considering that it does not require a full attack to hit with the greatsword, but does require a full attack to hit with both the longsword/battleaxe and short sword at a -2/-2.
The only ways in which the longsword/short sword is superior are:
- Damage dealing enchantments on the two weapons both go off, dealing additional damage.
- Improved and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting can add additional off-hand attacks.
Given those two features, it might be worth using two weapons after BAB+6, and certainly after BAB+11.
Exotics
However, there's an even better option if you're willing to explore the exotic weapons: bastard sword and two-bladed sword.
Bastard sword and dwarven waraxe
Using bastard sword or dwarven waraxe gives you a 1d10 damage in primary. Combined with a short sword, this is substantially better than greatsword damage, but then you have to shift the graph by two (-2 atk for two-weapon fighting).
Two-bladed sword
Throwing away the short-sword in off-hand, this double weapon is a powerhouse because it ups the off-hand damage to 1d8 while still counting as a light weapon, and consolidates the +2 dmg bonus from weapon specialization. This beats out greatsword for all but the hardest opponents. See the damage graph to the right.
Full vs standard attack
The final difficulty in comparing these two is the actual mechanics of combat. A greatsword-wielder will wade into combat and, on the same round that he/she moved, make a single attack for their full damage. A two-weapon fighter, on the other hand, will have to sacrifice off-hand damage on that round. This balances damage out a bit more, and probably makes the two fighting styles equivalent again.
The two-bladed sword does come to the rescue once more, however, since it can be used as a two-handed weapon on that first round. This gives you the normal 1d8 damage, but the full 1.5X str bonus to damage which does help to defray the loss a bit. Also, you can take the two-weapon defense feat which will allow you to take advantage of a handy shield bonus for using a double weapon.
Criticals
Surprisingly, critical hits are just noise in the system. They happen so rarely that they are just not helpful enough. With a 19-20 critical weapon, against a trivial opponent, you still gain only a small bonus to damage on average, and as the difficulty of the encounter goes up (i.e. AC rises) the average damage from criticals plummets to as low as half a percent! This is because, most swings will never treaten a critical, and even when they do, most opponents will have a high enough armor class to eliminate a sizable fraction of threatened criticals when you roll to confirm.
In the end, even with improved critical and the feat that gives +4 to confirm crits, I was still only able to get about a 10% increase in criticals on most weapons.
In general, I suggest worrying about things that can increase the damage of a higher percentage of swings, thus removing the chance that, during an important combat, none of your extra damage will be done.
Conclusion
Unless you are doing something strange (such as the various spiked chain hacks) or cannot afford the weight of the heavier weapons, or are specifically building around weapon finesse, the best option appears to be either the greatsword or the two-bladed sword, with both greataxe and the bastard sword / short sword combo making a strong showing.
If you are going for finesse, then either spiked chain or dual short swords are probably the way to go. If you're a monk, then just pick your preferred damage type, but certainly consider the quarterstaff, and eventually, the joys of unarmed damage.
