Just a quick poll I suppose. I am playing a paladin and was wonderng what weapon would be best. I have a toss up of a Great Axe, Great Sword or a Nodachi. I know that the greatsword and great Axe have the most damage potential, but the Nodachi has the brace quality and the higher crit range.
What do you guys think? Is the higheer crit range more important? Or is it easily offset by the higher damage of the other two weapons?
Just a quick poll I suppose. I am playing a paladin and was wonderng what weapon would be best. I have a toss up of a Great Axe, Great Sword or a Nodachi. I know that the greatsword and great Axe have the most damage potential, but the Nodachi has the brace quality and the higher crit range.
What do you guys think? Is the higheer crit range more important? Or is it easily offset by the higher damage of the other two weapons?
what is important is how often you crit, and what you add to the weapon damage dice. The actual dice you roll becomes pretty irrelevant, pretty quickly IMO.
i personally like falchions. At low level you know your pretty much gonna get 4-6 damage from the dice rolls, and no danger of a 1 (even if you add masses to the damage, 1s still suck!)
if you do 2d4 +15 damage, or 1d12 +15 damage, the dice no longer matter (much). Critting alot is great
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I'm not sure how often brace is going to come into play (I've NEVER seen it used), but go with the nodachi. Getting crits three times (or one and a half times) as often as a great axe (even if the g.a does have a higher multiplier) means more damage over all. The frequency of your crits is just going to go up when you get a keen nodachi or take improved crit. With improved crit/keen, you'll be critting roughly 1/3 of your attacks with the nodachi, 1/5 with the great sword and about 1/10 of the time with a great axe.
What do you guys think? Is the higheer crit range more important? Or is it easily offset by the higher damage of the other two weapons?
The actual weapon damage is only really important in certain cases:
A) Low levels- before you get a lot of strength and other things adding in. Eventually things like smite, magical effects, strength will easily wash out the minor differences in weapon dice.
B) Vital strike- if for some reason you pursue this feat chain, it is highly dependent on damage dice, and doesn't have much of a use with criticals.
The way to calculate the value of a critical is to multiply the amount of extra damage by the frequency.
So a 20 x2 = (5%)*(100%)= 5% damage boost
So for the weapons you are considering:
Great Sword 19-20 x2 = (10%)*(100%)= 10%
Great Axe 20 x3 = (5%)*(200%)= 10%
Nodachi 18-20 x2 = (15%)*(100%)= 15%
Thus the nodachi gets a significant edge on criticals. When you actually work up DPR calculations (especially at higher levels once improved critical comes in), this does have a telling effect.
I admit, looking at the Nodachi, I cannot imagine why anyone would every use a falchion again (assuming the Nodachi is made available). It's just plain better.
Just a quick poll I suppose. I am playing a paladin and was wonderng what weapon would be best. I have a toss up of a Great Axe, Great Sword or a Nodachi. I know that the greatsword and great Axe have the most damage potential, but the Nodachi has the brace quality and the higher crit range.
What do you guys think? Is the higheer crit range more important? Or is it easily offset by the higher damage of the other two weapons?
For a paladin in particular (who has high damage bonuses) the crit range is going to be the most important thing about a weapon. At level 1 or 2 a higher base damage will probably be more useful, but past that you want something that will crit often.
A falcata would be the best for pure damage per round, but an 18-20 weapon would be nice too. x3 and x4 crits are often going to overkill enemies anyway, so it's more important to crit often than crit hard.
My copy of UC is downstairs and I'm lazy, but if a nodachi is at least 1D8 and 18-20 it's going to be a better than a greatsword for a paladin, at least after the first few levels.
My copy of UC is downstairs and I'm lazy, but if a nodachi is at least 1D8 and 18-20 it's going to be a better than a greatsword for a paladin, at least after the first few levels.
A nodachi is 18-20 x2 1d10 damage. It's better than a falchion (marginally). Looks like the best non EWP weapon in the game right now.
Thanks guys for the wonderful wealth of information and opinion. Now does a smite evil multiply on a crit? Is Strength also doubled?
Thanks guys for the wonderful wealth of information and opinion. Now does a smite evil multiply on a crit? Is Strength also doubled?
The strength damage you would do is multipied by two on a critical and so is smite damage.
Yes and yes. As long as the modifier is a straight number it should multiply just fine. As smite evil uses the paladin's level IIRC, it will work; strength bonus definitely works.
Sweet.
Thanks ladies and gents. I was already convinced to take it, but now I will definitely take it over the greatsword.
Good to know where to find definite answers.
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I know two weapon fighting tends to fall behind in many areas but you might also consider a two bladed sword. (double weapon) Two attacks per round with 19-20 crit range and your smite evil applies to BOTH of them. That is 2 chances per round of rolling a 19-20. It does require some feats and other stuff to be effective, but it might be something else to consider.
I know two weapon fighting tends to fall behind in many areas but you might also consider a two bladed sword. (double weapon) Two attacks per round with 19-20 crit range and your smite evil applies to BOTH of them. That is 2 chances per round of rolling a 19-20. It does require some feats and other stuff to be effective, but it might be something else to consider.
This is a trap. I've tried building this with a Pally once for fun, and it was a chore to get everything lined up. While Smite helps out in the damage department, it's waaay to feat intensive for my tastes.