is 1d12+1 better than 2d6?

[Bastila Shan]

its on a weapon but which is the better weapon?

[Quillithe]

WeenerTuck813님이 먼저 게시:

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

Well, except technically speaking if your only goal is to roll a 3 or above. A 2d6 is slightly better at doing that.

But, yeah, for the other 99% of rolls in D&D it's strictly better.

I don’t actually think that’s true in particular due to factoring in the miss % having the +1 to attack. If you’re talking about an enemy that you specifically need 3 damage against, you have to factor in all the times you need literally ANY other damage amount and you miss the target at a 5% higher rate.

and with so many opportunities to ”Reroll 1’s” on damage die and so on.

Additionally, any % chance to roll under a 3, which is minimal, is likely offset by the %chance to roll above a 12, which is literally 0 on a 2d6

Long term, averaging things out, the 1d12+1 has more than a small advantage here.

Oh, yeah if you've got +1 to attack OR if you care about what the roll is at all, then the 1d12+1 is better all the time.

My point was just that specifically the single situation that a 1d12+1 roll is ever worse than a 2d6 is if you just need exactly 3 or above which usually isn't the situation. Like, if all enemies had 4 or less hit points, 2d6 would actually be the better damage roll, weirdly enough.

But this is just a statistical curiosity, in actual D&D where enemies have more than 4 hit points, it's not even close.

[Panic Fire]

WeenerTuck813님이 먼저 게시:

Criminal Horse님이 먼저 게시:

IMO "Probability distribution" is less adequate parameter to measure damage capabilities, than "average damage". It's more likely matter of taste if you want more stable numbers or better chances to make maximum/minimum damage.

But there could be nuances.
Like half-orc savage attacks, barbarian's Brutal Critical's — those could make d12 wepons slightly more preferable*

Or on the other hand
Great Weapon Fighting (rerolling 1 and 2s) could make 2d6 more preferable. Because 2 dices with less potential have a lot more chances to roll 1/2.

Polearm Master (not implemented in BG3)
Is a great feat, which negates both d12 and 2d6 weapons :D

*17 lvl orc barbarian rolls 4 bonus dices on crit. 4d12 vs 4d6 is
26-14=12 damage difference on crit. With 10% crit chance (advantage) it's average 12*0.1 = 1.2 damage per hit difference between d12 and 2d6 weapon.
Which doesn't look very magical on lvl17 )

This post nailed it.

In general, a 2d6 weapon is better than a 1d12 item. A 1d12 can be better in specific situations like a half orc barb, as listed above.

But a 1d12+1 weapon is always better than a 2d6 weapon.

Well BG3 adds another wrinkle in the form of Weapon Arts.

Do the GreatSword Weapon arts outstrip the Greataxe and vice verca?

Frankly with the loss of crit profiles from earlyer editions weapons have kind of lost a lot of there personality.

Weapon Arts imo are a nice edition that help bring back weapon personality in a big way though.


(For context, 3.5 Greatsword 2d6 (19-20)x2)
(For context, 3.5 GreatAxe 1d12 (20)x3)

[KOHb]

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

WeenerTuck813님이 먼저 게시:

I don’t actually think that’s true in particular due to factoring in the miss % having the +1 to attack. If you’re talking about an enemy that you specifically need 3 damage against, you have to factor in all the times you need literally ANY other damage amount and you miss the target at a 5% higher rate.

and with so many opportunities to ”Reroll 1’s” on damage die and so on.

Additionally, any % chance to roll under a 3, which is minimal, is likely offset by the %chance to roll above a 12, which is literally 0 on a 2d6

Long term, averaging things out, the 1d12+1 has more than a small advantage here.

Oh, yeah if you've got +1 to attack OR if you care about what the roll is at all, then the 1d12+1 is better all the time.

My point was just that specifically the single situation that a 1d12+1 roll is ever worse than a 2d6 is if you just need exactly 3 or above which usually isn't the situation. Like, if all enemies had 4 or less hit points, 2d6 would actually be the better damage roll, weirdly enough.

But this is just a statistical curiosity, in actual D&D where enemies have more than 4 hit points, it's not even close.

As I said earlier, "Probability distribution" is a bad argument. Same as you may be needed to deal 'at least 2' you also might need 'not less than 11' damage. For d12+1 both are equivalent and you have more chances to fail at first, but succeed at second compared to 2d6.
So that argument about 'i need exact damage' is double cutting edge.

Your real choice here is between more stable 'average rolls' and 'full range of damage'. And it has nothing to do with average damage in long term statistics.

[Quillithe]

Criminal Horse님이 먼저 게시:

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

Oh, yeah if you've got +1 to attack OR if you care about what the roll is at all, then the 1d12+1 is better all the time.

My point was just that specifically the single situation that a 1d12+1 roll is ever worse than a 2d6 is if you just need exactly 3 or above which usually isn't the situation. Like, if all enemies had 4 or less hit points, 2d6 would actually be the better damage roll, weirdly enough.

But this is just a statistical curiosity, in actual D&D where enemies have more than 4 hit points, it's not even close.

As I said earlier, "Probability distribution" is a bad argument. Same as you may be needed to deal 'exact 2' you also might need 'exact 11' damage. For d12+1 both are equivalent and have better chances than 2d6.
So that argument about 'i need exact damage' is double cutting edge.

Your real choice here is between more stable 'average rolls' and 'full range of damage'. And it has nothing to do with average damage in long term statistics.

No, it's pretty valid as an argument.

1d12+1 does more damage on average.

If you need exactly 2 or 4 damage, both rolls are equally likely.

If you need exactly 3 damage, 2d6 is better.

If you need any amount from 5-13, 1d12+1 is better.

So 1d12+1 does more on average and is at least as likely to do the finishing blow on any enemy (unless that enemy has exactly 3 health). So 1d12+1 is better.

If you really wanted to get into it you could assume a flat distribution of enemy health between 1-13 and use that to try to determine likelihood of finishing off injured enemies, but it's a pretty obvious situation here.

[Aldain]

So the real question now.

What about 2d6+1?

[Quillithe]

Aldain님이 먼저 게시:

So the real question now.

What about 2d6+1?

Generally better than 1d12+1, unless you really want a higher chance for big numbers and you want to sacrifice average damage for that.

[RealDealBreaker]

How has this gone on for 186+ posts?

The answer is simple: 1d12+1 is better because the average damage is higher (7.5 > 7).

/thread

[KOHb]

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

No, it's pretty valid as an argument.

1d12+1 does more damage on average.

If you need exactly 2 or 4 damage, both rolls are equally likely.

If you need exactly 3 damage, 2d6 is better.

If you need any amount from 5-13, 1d12+1 is better.

So 1d12+1 does more on average and is at least as likely to do the finishing blow on any enemy (unless that enemy has exactly 3 health). So 1d12+1 is better.

If you really wanted to get into it you could assume a flat distribution of enemy health between 1-13 and use that to try to determine likelihood of finishing off injured enemies, but it's a pretty obvious situation here.

I think you didn't get my point, or I explained poorly (more likely due to my language skills).

I mean that you never know how much exact damage you will need in game. So you will never guess which "Probability distribution" would be more preferable: Linear at d12 or Gaussian at 2d6.

So, when we are comparing 'which weapon is better' with main criterion 'damage' — Average damage would be more relevant than Distribution.

Also there is a thing that must be taken in consideration: the higher level your character is, the less your basic weapon damage influences overall damage. Because when you get tons of +damage modifiers, higher main stat etc... your base weapon damage will have a lot less influence (less than 5%).

Meaning at higher levels difference between d12 and 2d6 and even d10 will melt.

[Quillithe]

Criminal Horse님이 먼저 게시:

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

No, it's pretty valid as an argument.

1d12+1 does more damage on average.

If you need exactly 2 or 4 damage, both rolls are equally likely.

If you need exactly 3 damage, 2d6 is better.

If you need any amount from 5-13, 1d12+1 is better.

So 1d12+1 does more on average and is at least as likely to do the finishing blow on any enemy (unless that enemy has exactly 3 health). So 1d12+1 is better.

If you really wanted to get into it you could assume a flat distribution of enemy health between 1-13 and use that to try to determine likelihood of finishing off injured enemies, but it's a pretty obvious situation here.

I think you didn't get my point, or I explained poorly (more likely due to my language skills).

I mean that you never know how much exact damage you will need in game. So you will never guess which "Probability distribution" would be more preferable: Linear at d12 or Gaussian at 2d6.

So, when we are comparing 'which weapon is better' with main criterion 'damage' — Average damage would be more relevant than Distribution.

Also there is a thing that must be taken in consideration: the higher level your character is, the less your basic weapon damage influences overall damage. Because when you get tons of +damage modifiers, higher main stat etc... your base weapon damage will have a lot less influence (less than 5%).

Meaning at higher levels difference between d12 and 2d6 and even d10 will melt.

Oh yeah, averages are a better method. My point is that even if you look at the probability distribution 1d12+1 is still better except as a curiosity, at exactly a single particular case.

d12 vs 2d6 the average is better to look at for sure, but it's worth noting that the distribution can be important under specific interactions that just mostly don't exist in D&D.

[WeenerTuck813]

Aldain님이 먼저 게시:

So the real question now.

What about 2d6+1?

Not a question, 2d6+1 > 1d12+1
Unless you have specific modifiers applying like some Half orc or Barbarian abilities that add an extra damage die (1d6 vs 1d12)

[Bastila Shan]

Who resurrected this 2 year old thread?

[KOHb]

WeenerTuck813님이 먼저 게시:

Unless you have specific modifiers applying like some Half orc or Barbarian abilities that add an extra damage die (1d6 vs 1d12)

Or "Great Weapon Fighting" making two dices rerolling on low results even more sweet :P
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Fighter#toc_8

Hoboslayer님이 먼저 게시:

Who resurrected this 2 year old thread?

The necromancer obviosly. Who else could?
And his name is "Saddam Hussein Gaming"

[dolby]

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

WeenerTuck813님이 먼저 게시:

This post nailed it.

In general, a 2d6 weapon is better than a 1d12 item. A 1d12 can be better in specific situations like a half orc barb, as listed above.

But a 1d12+1 weapon is always better than a 2d6 weapon.

Well, except technically speaking if your only goal is to roll a 3 or above. A 2d6 is slightly better at doing that.

But, yeah, for the other 99% of rolls in D&D it's strictly better.

no it's not due to weapon attacks...it depands what you want from it but comparing +1 weapon vs one without is kinda unfair so. and normally you can get other effects on the weapon that can outwaight that +1 so it's not really that clear cut... At least not in bG 3 and this is bg 3 forum anyway generaly speaking same team same class race and fighting same high AC enemies all the time you take +1

[Quillithe]

dolby님이 먼저 게시:

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

Well, except technically speaking if your only goal is to roll a 3 or above. A 2d6 is slightly better at doing that.

But, yeah, for the other 99% of rolls in D&D it's strictly better.

no it's not due to weapon attacks...it depands what you want from it but comparing +1 weapon vs one without is kinda unfair so. and normally you can get other effects on the weapon that can outwaight that +1 so it's not really that clear cut...

The question didn't seem to be comparing a 1d12 weapon with a +1 modifier to a 2d6 weapon.

Once you start considering that, a 1d6 +1 weapon's likely better than 2d6, depending on the situation.

My point was just that even as a pure damage roll the 1d12+1 is better at everything EXCEPT if you need precisely a 3 or more and don't care about the more. Which is a very specific instance that you can't expect often.



How many times are people going to respond to my posts about how 1d12+1 is better by saying "No, actually 1d12+1 is better"?

[dolby]

Quillithe님이 먼저 게시:

dolby님이 먼저 게시:

no it's not due to weapon attacks...it depands what you want from it but comparing +1 weapon vs one without is kinda unfair so. and normally you can get other effects on the weapon that can outwaight that +1 so it's not really that clear cut...

The question didn't seem to be comparing a 1d12 weapon with a +1 modifier to a 2d6 weapon.

Once you start considering that, a 1d6 +1 weapon's likely better than 2d6, depending on the situation.

My point was just that even as a pure damage roll the 1d12+1 is better at everything EXCEPT if you need precisely a 3 or more and don't care about the more. Which is a very specific instance that you can't expect often.



How many times are people going to respond to my posts about how 1d12+1 is better by saying "No, actually 1d12+1 is better"?

hehe a apparently lots of times...sorry:) anyway the real answers to the ops question is it doesnt matter.

Just use the one that looks and feels the coolest to you... For the situation at hand.:)

That's why i'm dual wielding most of the time cos it's looks bad ass and i'm sick of picking GWM most boring feat ever made.. reminds me of pathfinders Precise Shot feat nauseating feat again so boring!