UO Second Age

It has come to my attention that GM crafted weapons have a different damage calculation than magic weapons, thus making them far more powerful than they should be, and not accurately calculated according to the T2A weapon damage calculator. I decided to put this theory to a test and seek to answer - Are GM weapons currently better than regular Power weapons?

The following is a damage test I conducted with a brand new GM halberd and a brand new Power halberd (no tactics bonus). The wielder had 100 str, 100 tactics, 100 swords, 0 anatomy. The damage taker was naked with 0 armor, 0 wrestling and 100 str.

Power:

19
33
35
20
39
22
38
29
33
41
9
15
28
17
37
41
29
21
29
26
43
27
13
25
26
20
26
17
28
27
37
41
40
22
42
26
28
34
18
19
31
26
25
30
34
32
26
33
15

*******

GM:

41
37
34
34
30
29
39
19
24
31
22
35
17
16
38
38
26
24
25
25
31
19
25
30
31
28
31
19
30
23
13
39
42
24
31
17
42
34
32
38
25
34
30
27
24
24
23
20
29


I realize this test is small, but I feel like I've gotten an accurate picture of the minimum and maximum damages of these weapons. Both hit for low 40's on maximum damage, power hitting for 43, GM hitting for 42. On the low end, power hit for 9 and GM hit for 13.

Based on this small test I have to conclude that these two weapons hit for almost the same damage, the GM hitting for slightly more consistent higher damage.

Does this seem to be correct? or is the damage calculation for GM/magic weapons bugged?

I'd have to ask Anarcho what the code actually looks like, but as far as I know, weapons should add their damage to the end of the calculation after tactics, anatomy, and strength bonuses, and before damage absorption from armor takes place.

It's hard to say. Given we're talking about statistics, probably nearly impossible.

However, I can say that comparing the minimum (or maximum) damages of these weapons is the wrong way to approach the problem. The damage of a Halberd is 2d23+3 (2d23+7 for GM), as per the wiki. Take a look at the GM Halberd damage distribution: http://anydice.com/program/65b7. The minimum hit is 9, with a 0.19% chance of occurrence. You hit only 49 times..

Yet you are right that the GM Halberd did better, hitting an average of 28.55, vs 28 for Power -- was it one of mine, by any chance?

What we can do, is to compare the two sample's standard errors, or deviations. For the GM Halberd, that's 7.31; for the Power Halberd, 8.42. If we add these to their respective means, we can say that, for 68% of hits, a GM Halberd will hit at a max 35.86 vs 36.42 for Power.

You have a choice. You can pay extra for a Power Halberd that will hit 0.56 more points as a likely maximum. Or, you can come visit my vendor at Moonglow Gate for GM Halberds at only 195gp per!

Cromwell wrote:It's hard to say. Given we're talking about statistics, probably nearly impossible.

However, I can say that comparing the minimum (or maximum) damages of these weapons is the wrong way to approach the problem. The damage of a Halberd is 2d23+3 (2d23+7 for GM), as per the wiki. Take a look at the GM Halberd damage distribution: http://anydice.com/program/65b7. The minimum hit is 9, with a 0.19% chance of occurrence. You hit only 49 times..

Yet you are right that the GM Halberd did better, hitting an average of 28.55, vs 28 for Power -- was it one of mine, by any chance?

What we can do, is to compare the two sample's standard errors, or deviations. For the GM Halberd, that's 7.31; for the Power Halberd, 8.42. If we add these to their respective means, we can say that, for 68% of hits, a GM Halberd will hit at a max 35.86 vs 36.42 for Power.

You have a choice. You can pay extra for a Power Halberd that will hit 0.56 more points as a likely maximum. Or, you can come visit my vendor at Moonglow Gate for GM Halberds at only 195gp per!

This is the best vendor ad I've ever seen.

Well, if we knew the exact minimum and maximum damages of both weapons then we would have a concrete answer of which is better and if there is a bug or not and i'd rather not spend hours hitting a target hundreds of times to get those values. It's far easier for an admin to just check the code for discrepancies.

The GM halberd I used was my own smiths, sorry Cromwell lol.

That's an interesting read. I'd always assumed force weapons were comparable to GM made. This seems to support Power weapons are comparable to GM made. As long as nothing changes, I should be able to make a lot more space in my secure containers since I need +Tactics Power and Vanq's (plus charged items of course).

I should be able to safely remove all the +tactics force, and regular power weapons if we get some confirmation. This begs the question though. Why bother with magic weapons at all? There seems to be very little lift for the added cost. Spend the coin on reflect, invis, and teleport stuff instead...

There is one important caveat. The halberd is a weapon with a very wide disparity between top and bottom end. The larger the range, the bigger the sample size needs to be to properly assess. It should be enough to get the GM's involved though.

Rose doesn't know how to hally cycle.

The sample size is entirely too small--you even acknowledged that yourself. I don't blame you for not wanting to run thousands of hits, though. The quickest and easiest way to figure this out is, as Kaivan mentioned, to have Banarcho check out the code.

selling gm hally.

sb 10k

5 year old power hally

I am reviewing this code with Kaivan.

If anything, it will at least be a good refresher as some of this stuff is quite old.

Thanks.

april fools!

This will never show up using a hally. Use a macing weapon with many small die to reduce small sample size variation. The war hammer will make it obvious within 100 swings.

After doing a bit of research on the weapons damage calculation, it seems like there is a an unexplained aspect, it is hard to pinpoint exactly where the magical (or GM crafted) damage is supposed to be applied.

This is the base halberd damage 2d23+3 (5-49).
Which of the following should be true...

A) Magical/GM damage to be applied to the base damage (2d23+3+X)
B) Magical/GM damage to be applied outside of base damage (added in the same way tact/str/anat is added)
C) Magical/GM damage to be applied outside of base damage and outside of halving (fully calculate damage then add X)

I calculated what the damage of a +25 vanq halberd should be in all three of these scenarios, providing the user has 100 str, 100 tactics, and 100 anatomy. I am also assuming the damage bonus at 125 tactics = 175% base damage according to the progression of this chart

A) 22.05 - 91.35 Final Damage
B) 12.375 - 81.675 Final Damage
C) 16.875 - 87.675 Final Damage

These numbers were calculated AFTER dice rolls, and not applied to individual dice.

Now these numbers seem off to what a +25 vanq halberd in the hands of an anatomy user can do. Currently I don't think damages can get this high. Perhaps my tactics calculation is off? There really is no information to go by on what 125 tactics is supposed to add, I just assume its 175% to base damage.

For reference, the following is the stratics attack sequence:

1) Determine Speed of Attack.
2) Determine % Chance to Hit.
3) Randomly determine base damage, within weapon's damage range.
4a) Determine Tactics Modifier to Damage Dealt to base damage.
4b) Add STR Bonuses to Damage Dealt to base damage.
4c) Add Anatomy Bonuses to Damage Dealt to base damage.
5) Double all Spell-damage against non-players.
6) Check for magical defenses. (Reactive Armor, for example).
7) Modify for Chance to Block an Attack with / Damage Absorbed by Shield. (Ignore if Defender is not wearing a shield).
8 ) Determine Hit Location
9) Modify for Damage Absorbed by Armor
10) Halve all remaining damage.
11) Apply final damage.

i suppose that since the secret is out now,

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing