Swords comparison

So I've been trying to get a lawful win (i.e. using Valpurus' gifts), and it's tough. Today I decided to use wizard mode to compare my large sword choices. Mostly, I wanted to see if it was worth training my arm strength up and then using a bastard sword one-handed, compared to a flaming sword. (I didn't include vanilla long swords in the comparison, because flaming swords are fairly common and are better in all ways: even when both are made of meteoric steel, the flaming sword has +1 max damage AND the flaming modifier for the same weight.)

So I generated the weapons, and changed their materials to various mid-to-advanced materials. Noted their damage ranges and the AStr requirements to one-hand wield them (and in the case of adamant, two-hand wield). (A few weapons, such as mithril and it's decendants, had such low AStr requirements that I didn't bother writing them either.) Here are my results:

             Flaming   Bastard        Two-Handed         Scimitar
Iron:           3-6    3-7  (15 astr)  4-8  (46 astr)     5-9  (48 astr)
Meteoric Steel: 3-7    4-8  (11 astr)  5-9  (35 astr)     5-10 (37 astr)
Mithril:        3-7    4-8             5-10 (18 astr)     6-11 (19 astr)
Octiron:        3-6    3-6             4-8                4-9
Diamond:        4-8    5-9             6-11               7-12
Adamant:        6-11   7-13 (23 astr)  8-15 (9/71 astr)   9-17 (10/75 astr)
Valpurium:      4-9    5-10            7-12               7-14

As you can see, the largest difference in per-hit damage between a flaming and a bastard sword is when they are made of adamant, and even then it's only a 1-2 damage difference. While I'm not sure about how much damage the flaming modifier adds, I suspect it's somewhere around 1-6, which makes bastard swords a mostly ineffective alternative for flaming swords... On the other hand, at the valpurium level, the two-handed sword is a clear winner, with a negligible arm strength requirement and a full 3 point damage bonus over a flaming sword.

Isn't weight a factor also?

Yes, which is why the low-density material weapons had low damage, and adamant had really high damage. It also affects attack speed, I believe.

Edit: I found the relevant code for the flaming sword (or rather, the flaming effect) on the old forums:

truth flamingsword::HitEffect(character* Enemy, character* Hitter, v2 HitPos, int BodyPartIndex, int Direction, truth BlockedByArmour)
{
  truth BaseSuccess = meleeweapon::HitEffect(Enemy, Hitter, HitPos, BodyPartIndex, Direction, BlockedByArmour);

  if(Enemy->IsEnabled() && RAND() & 1)
  {
    if(Enemy->IsPlayer() || Hitter->IsPlayer() || Enemy->CanBeSeenByPlayer() || Hitter->CanBeSeenByPlayer())
      ADD_MESSAGE("%s sword burns %s.", Hitter->CHAR_POSSESSIVE_PRONOUN, Enemy->CHAR_DESCRIPTION(DEFINITE));

    return Enemy->ReceiveBodyPartDamage(Hitter, 3 + (RAND() & 3), FIRE, BodyPartIndex, Direction) || BaseSuccess;
  }
  else
    return BaseSuccess;
}

This appears to indicate (if I'm reading my C right) that the fire effect deals "3 + (Rand() & 3)" damage, or 3-5 damage, when triggered. That's actually quite a bit -- assuming 50% trigger chance, it's enough to beat out the bastard sword at all levels.

What about two-handed scimitars? They are higher on damage and lower on accuracy than zweihanders, so Valpurium version should own Two-Handed Valpurium sword.

Oh my I forgot about scimitars. I also realized Diamond should be on the list. I'll check this and then edit the initial post.

EDIT: Added. They both (scimitars and diamond) seem like excellent options. The scimitars are only marginally more difficult to wield than two-handed swords. Unfortunately, there's no "easy" way to get a valpurium weapon, other than two-handed swords. However a diamond scimitar is comparable to the valpurium two-hander, and for a lower Int requirement.

EDIT2: I also ignored accuracy for the purposes of these comparisons, as low accuracy can be offset with weapon enchantments.

Enchantments also boost damage, however.

As I recall however enchantments boost damage by a flat amount, rather than a percentage; thus a +10 twohanded sword would get just as much add'l damage as a +10 long sword. And also remember, that accuracy and durability are on a 20-point scale; once you reach the upper limits of that scale (unbelievably accurate etc) you can't go higher.

Since enchantments do boost damage by 1 per application, faster weapons will benefit from them more than slow ones do. That +10 longsword would hypothetically trump the +10 two-handed sword just because of its higher DPS. Accuracy is a moot point; enchants, weapon skill (and dexterity?) are enough to give the player a negligible miss chance when high enough for this kind of min-maxing to actually matter.

Then there's of course the alpha-strike damage which in practice often matters more. It's obviously higher for the two-hander, but only comes to play when the first strike kills or incapacitates the target or the player has another action before the target gets to hit back. Sherry and highly enchanted war mistresses are pretty much the only targets to which this doesn't apply, so for the rest of the game two-handers generally perform better.

I wish I could find out just how much faster say, an octiron flaming sword is than an adamantine two-handed scimitar...

Actually enchantments aren't a flat 1 damage boost. I tried looking for the source of the info but failed to do so; may give it another try later.

EDIT: If you want to try looking for it, I think it was on greatboards. An example was given using a whip.

EDIT: Still can't find it, but I did find this, which is immensely useful info.

So, according to this, there's no significant speed difference between two weapons as long as you're strong enough to wield them?

From the sounds of it, yes. That said, some weapons have crazy strength requirements.

Finally found the enchantment increase increments while randomly browsing. It is not a flat +1 increase.

Actually, chao, according to the formula Planplan posted, the average damage of a weapon does increase by a flat +1 for each enchantment level. Instead of adding one to both min and max damages, every fourth enchantment increases the max damage by two while the min damage remains the same. Simple arithmetic mean.

There's no point in looking at the damage range variances for an item in a roguelike with hundreds of combat hits, it all averages out. It of course has an effect when looking at a single combat at a time in that luck plays a role, but a highly enchanted weapon is quite likely to go through quite a few turns of combat. Average damage is more significant.

The original statement was;

And the formula is clearly percentage based. Also, precisely because it's percentage based, a stronger weapon will not follow the same pattern as the leather whip used in the example, one of the weakest weapons. To illustrate this point, I tried enchanting Turox, one of the most damaging weapons even without the explosions. At +2 enchantment you've gained an average of 0.5 damage, not 1. To balance this out you need to get it up to +4, at which stage you gain an average of 1.5 damage. On lower levels it's not much trouble but at higher levels it'll be hard to get to that balancing point because it's a struggle just to get that +1 enchantment.