Generally, would you rather have a -1 THAC0 bonus, a +1 damage bonus, or a -2 weapon speed bonus?

JDow

Balrog99

Damage bonus in later/harder fights (SoA and especially ToB) means you kill the enemies quicker, especially for fighter types that get more than one attack per round. When fighting weaker opponents, attacking quicker or hitting more often is better. I chose damage since harder fights are more common after the first few levels...

Grond0

Which is preferable is very situational. If you're struggling to hit with a missile weapon then a THAC0 bonus is the clear winner. If you're in the end game and are hitting everything with a 2 using GWWs then a damage bonus is the clear winner.

If you're in a party and using AI to control your attacks then a weapon speed bonus will be little benefit. However, if (like me) you normally play solo and typically micro-manage fights to avoid the opponent retaliating even in melee then a weapon speed bonus may be the clear winner (not always even there though as if you actually want to use something like a staff it's easy to get a weapon speed of 0 anyway).

I partly also chose the speed bonus to help highlight that leveraging weapon speed advantages tends to be under-appreciated as a potential strategy.

dunbar

I agree that it's a very situational question but, generally speaking, my way of thinking is that damage and speed are irrelevant if I can't hit my opponent in the first place.

Edit: To elaborate, better Thac0 means that you hit more often - which equivalates to both doing more damage and hitting faster.

Raduziel

Are we talking about PnP or IE?

lroumen

I generally don't play warriors, so thac0 I need for sure. And i would rather hit once per round more than hit for less extra.

semiticgoddess

I prefer the damage bonuses, mostly because of preference and partly because there are many ways to improve THAC0 and few ways to improve damage. But I think a point in THAC0 is actually more optimal in most cases, since on-hit effects can be very useful, and in some cases, like disrupting an enemy mage's spells, it's more important to hit reliably than to hit hard.

The benefit of +1 THAC0 depends on your chance of hitting. If you already have a 90% chance of hitting, then the extra 5% hit rate doesn't grant you much more than you already have. If your hit rate is only 5%, then +1 THAC0 will double your damage output.

I did some rough calculations and found that, for a level 7 fighter using a +2 longsword with specialization and 18/51 STR, an extra point of THAC0 is more useful if the fighter's hit rate is 55% or less. Any higher than that, and +1 damage is more useful for damage output.

If you do more damage, however, then the THAC0 is more useful, since THAC0 grants a percentage bonus to damage output. If you deal 40 damage per round, an extra 10% hit rate will get you 4 more damage. If you only deal 10, an extra 10% hit rate will only buy you 1 more damage.

In fact, if you deal at least 20 damage per round, an extra point of THAC0 will always be more useful unless your hit rate is already 90%, since THAC0 bonuses can't increase hit rate beyond 95% due to the existence of critical misses.

In a nutshell: If your damage is strong or your THAC0 is weak, then +1 THAC0 is more useful. If your damage is weak or your THAC0 is strong, then +1 damage is more useful.

The THAC0 bonus is more useful in nearly all cases for several reasons:

1. The only characters that deal very little damage (spellcasters) also have poor THAC0. Even if +1 damage is more useful for these characters, the impact is small.
2. A well-constructed fighter can easily reach 20 potential damage output per round, but reaching a 90% hit rate is extremely difficult until ToB. Since most of your damage comes from fighters, the THAC0 advantage is more important for the party overall.
3. If your hit rate is 100% because the target is disabled, it's unlikely that you'll be unable to kill it before the disabler runs just because your damage output is lower, because disablers last far longer than they need to. Damage output is more useful in these cases, but since the battle is probably already won by this point, the actual benefit is small.
4. The toughest enemy spellcasters have low HP, which means victory doesn't depend on damage output.
5. The toughest enemy non-spellcasters, who have high HP and therefore require strong damage output to beat, also have low AC, which means achieving a high rate is very unlikely.

Generally speaking, the only times when +1 damage is more useful than +1 THAC0 is when you're dealing with enemies that are already easy to beat. Against the tougher critters, +1 THAC0 is more important.

But I find higher damage numbers per hit more satisfying, so I usually favor +1 damage. It's not optimal, but I enjoy it more.

ThacoBell

I like using Halberds, so the speed bonus would be very tasty.

Flashburn

That depends on the class who is using it. Thieves need low speed factor to land backstabs quickly or else the target might shift position and make it become a failstab. You get a +4 THAC0 bonus for striking from stealth and another +2 from attacking via a flank, so there's also that.

I would go with a +1 THAC0 bonus otherwise, as damage doesn't mean anything if you can't hit the enemy.

lroumen

In my experience, most enchanted weapons that thieves use have a low speed factor so they often do not need speed factor bonuses. Rather, they might need better monitoring on when their round starts and ends.

Kurona

Generally I would go for Thac0 except for a Thief. Assuming the +1 damage bonus doesn't come from Strength it means it's going to be affected by the backstab multiplier. When you backstab you really want a number as high as possible to be sure the target dies in one hit.

Raduziel

Raduziel said:

Are we talking about PnP or IE?

Ok, I'll answer for both.

PnP: -2 Speed

IE: +1 damage

Of all the options (Speed, Thac0 and Damage), Thac0 is the only one that improves naturally.

DreadKhan

Well, for a warrior he might improve damage by adding proficiencies, but there is a low limit on that.

Imho, if I was using a thief, I'd definitely take the THAC0 bonus, since they are such awful fighters and miss so readily. Even a half-orc assassin can use all the help he can get to actually land his backstabs. I seem to roll terribly when trying to backstab though.

sarevok57

Grond0 said:

Which is preferable is very situational. If you're struggling to hit with a missile weapon then a THAC0 bonus is the clear winner. If you're in the end game and are hitting everything with a 2 using GWWs then a damage bonus is the clear winner.

If you're in a party and using AI to control your attacks then a weapon speed bonus will be little benefit. However, if (like me) you normally play solo and typically micro-manage fights to avoid the opponent retaliating even in melee then a weapon speed bonus may be the clear winner (not always even there though as if you actually want to use something like a staff it's easy to get a weapon speed of 0 anyway).

I partly also chose the speed bonus to help highlight that leveraging weapon speed advantages tends to be under-appreciated as a potential strategy.

i actually used to use an exploit to get multiple cromwell items based off of a weapon's speed factor, don't remember if it was early EE or vanilla but here it what i did:

so back in the exploit days, when cromwell made you an item he would take your recipe pieces after the cut scene of him hammering, not before, so what i would do, is get my mage to low health ( so that a simple whack from a summoned skelly would kill them, now that i think of it, it was vanilla because i used to use the club wielding skellies )

anyways, mage low health, and then because of the cosmetic attacks and the fact that the skellies had a terrible speed factor ( probably 10 ) they would finally hit on the 3rd animated attack, so just before i would talk to cromwell, i would have my talker standing directly beside him, and force attack mr skelly to attack my wizerd, after 2 cosmetic attacks i would talk to cromwell start the item making process and then during that little period between chatting with cromwell and the little cut scene he does the skelly would kill my mage

but after the cutscene was done, the item was made, but the pieces were on the ground with the rest of my mage's goodies, so then i would revive, rinse, lather, repeat if need be to get more copies of cromwell items (having 3 maces of improved disruption can be very usefull )

but now adays i dont know if this exploit can be done or not, depending if it was fixed in the EE

gorgonzola

a thief needs thac0 to hit when he backstabs, but a +1 dmg that is multiplied is also great, he needs also a weapon with good speed and rynn, ram and striking staves have speed factor of 1 and are the best backstabbers of bg2.
so for a thief dmg or thac0 boost. as i prefer to hit for -5dmg than to fail completely the backstab i would go probably for the thac0 boost with my rogues, that if are not some F/T or FMT benefit of it also in the regular mlee or ranged fighting as their natural thac0 is sub optimal compared to the one of a dedicated fighter.
but as i use mostly toons that can cast and can attack and very rarely plain fighters so i perform a lot of cast and attack in the same round speed factor is really useful for me cause it determines the number of attacks possible after my toon has cast the spell, a fast attack leaves also to a fighter more time to move and relocate after performing his apr and before the next round begins, so allows better placement of my forces on the battleground.
+1 dmg has its advantages but as @semiticgod explained in most of the situations a thac0 boost works better. let me add that with an enemy at low health, i hit from death, often that +1dmg does not matter much while to fail an attack can mean having that enemy attack at least once more.

i don't vote cause i prefer thac0 or speed range depending on the toon class and role and on the party composition and leveling strategy, in a party of 3 probably also not fighters have good enough thac0, in a party of 6 i expect much more hits dodged by the enemy.

semiticgoddess

@gorgonzola: I was actually going to say that THAC0 was better than damage for a thief, but then I remembered that that damage would get multiplied on backstabs, and I realized that for a level 13 thief dealing 50 damage on a backstab with a 50% chance of hitting, it was actually dead even between +1 THAC0 and +1 damage, since going from 50% to 55% was a 10% increase, from 50 damage to 55, and the +1 damage would be multiplied to +5, also resulting in 50 damage becoming 55. That multiplier really shifts the balance in favor of damage for thieves, despite them having lousy THAC0 compared to fighters.

Of course, if you're using the Staff of Striking for the key backstabs in the game, you're already dealing over 60 damage per backstab at level 13, and that's without any damage bonuses at all. In that case, THAC0 would be much better.