Weapon Damage Calculation

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Ezren
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Weapon Damage Calculation

Post by Ezren »

While adding in the weapon damage calculations, I realized that there's no description of the exact effect of swing directions on damage done. This means that the interpretation of this modifier is up to us. Here's what I came up with based on the text in both Daggerfall and Arena's manual:

Swing Down: +4 (Much increased damage potential)
Swing Diagonal: +2 (Increased damage potential)
Swing Horizontal: 0 (Base damage potential)
Thrust Forward: -4 (Much decreased damage potential)

From here I have a few questions:
1. Is it possible to get the actual values used from DFVanilla?

2. Do we want to make Thrust Forward's modifier -2? At -4, combined with the material modifier, it is impossible to do thrust damage with an iron dagger. That doesn't seem right to me - is it this way in DFVanilla?

3. How should we add the modifier in? Arena's manual suggests it's just added as bonus damage to every successful swing, but "damage potential" to me seems like a reference to the upper bound of the damage range.

R.D.
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Re: Weapon Damage Calculation

Post by R.D. »

Hey, this is "Allofich" on GitHub.

I've tested a good bit in original Daggerfall now and I'm convinced that, in fact, an iron dagger will do no damage if you stab and don't have a strength modifier to cover it. There will be no blood, it looks the same as if you are missing/the attack is being dodged.

R.D.
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Re: Weapon Damage Calculation

Post by R.D. »

I am testing with a save fighting a rat with 6 hp (confirmed by attacking it with 1-1 hand to hand damage.)

Using a 0-4 damage iron dagger, with a -4 modifier from Strength, and 100 Agility and 100 Short Blade, I cannot do damage (looks like missing) with a stab or horizontal or diagonal strike. With a top-to-bottom chop, in one case I killed the rat in 3 hits, but then when I tried again it took at least 5. I tried again now and it took 4.

At a -5 strength modifier, the top-to-down chop won't do damage.

At a -3 Strength modifier, I can do damage rarely with a diagonal strike but not horizontal or stabbing. Probably it's only when I roll the maximum damage.

At a -2 Strength modifier, I can start doing damage with a horizontal strike.

I'm not sure whether the damage bonus is sometimes not being applied, is being applied in varying amounts, or if it is always applied in full but in some cases isn't enough to make the damage be 1 or more due to a low damage roll.

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Jay_H
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Re: Weapon Damage Calculation

Post by Jay_H »

This would really explain why so many new Daggerfall players find the first dungeon impossible. Most of their swings weren't even effective. This is great, knowing that zero-damage swings look like misses (at least on natural enemies; I'm imagining human enemies give the armor clanks).

WereShark
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Re: Weapon Damage Calculation

Post by WereShark »

Do these 0-damage swings cause relevant skill improvement? If so it could be a viable tactic to pump a skill fast, create -STR spell and tickle a weak monster somewhere with 0 dmg swings indefinitely.

Imho such small modifiers to dmg simply do not justify the existence of different swing types. Ebony Dagger does 9-14 dmg, ±4 make a relatively small difference already at start.

That said, I didn't ever noticed any obvious difference between different swing types and I played dg a lot, so probably these petty modifiers are what is really implemented in vanilla.

It seems more logical to me to trade dmg vs hit chance proportionally: -50% to hit & +50% to dmg, -25% to hit & +25% to dmg. Hmm, gotta read modding guide...

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