Simulating Variable Weapon Damage

Exploring Weapon Damage Part II

Here are some results of all that number-crunching that went into last post, a hit table that simulates using “variable” weapon damage by altering the hit chances for AC 9 to 2 but rolling 1d6 for damage on all successful hits.

Chart 9a: Simulating Variable Damage by Hit Chance

Simulated Die	Armor Class
	9[10]	8[11]	7[12]	6[13]	5[14]	4[15]	3[16]	2[17]
1d4	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
1d6	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
1d8	8	9	10	11	11	13	14	15
1d10	6	7	8	8	9	11	12	13

Note: the 1d6 isn’t simulated but is included on the chart for reference. 

Chart 9b: Comparing true damage dice to simulated damage dice

Damage Die	Average Likely Damage with True Roll	Average Likely Damage with Simulated Roll
d4	0.9375	0.9625
d6	1.3125	1.3125
d8	1.6875	1.6843
d10	2.0625	2.056

Example of use:  using a “d4” weapon to attack roll a d20 to hit on the row for d20 and when you hit roll 1d6 for damage (do the same with the other types of notational damage but only rolling 1d6 for actual damage). Over the course of multiple combat rounds the different hit chances will come very close to producing the same average likely damage  (as per Chart 9b).

Charts 9a and 9b show how significant higher damage weapons are in the common variable weapon damage used these days. We also see what variable weapon damage means, when a weapon does 1d4 points of damage or 1d8 points of damage (when playing with such notation) due to the inherent abstract nature of classic RPG combat we aren’t just saying “Weapon A does this much damage when it strikes a target” what we are actually say is  “Weapon A will provide the opportunity to inflict this much damage on a target during combat”.  So a d8 weapon isn’t necessarily inflicting more damage because it is inherently more awful in the types of wounds it inflicts but it offers the user more opportunity to inflict wounds.

Here’s a cleaner version of attack matrix for damage by hit chances that just replaces the dice notation for damage with relative verbiage should anyone want to make use of such a mechanic but doesn’t want it cluttered up with dice notation for dice not being used.

Damage Class Attack Table

Damage Class	Armor Class
	9[10]	8[11]	7[12]	6[13]	5[14]	4[15]	3[16]	2[17]
Light	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19
Medium	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17
Heavy	8	9	10	11	11	13	14	15
X-Heavy	6	7	8	8	9	11	12	13