Daggers of Stabbing

[danr]

I just got a dagger of stabbing, which seems to be the vorpal brand for daggers. Is there a special bonus for stabbing with these, or is it just the standard +12.5% on average to damage?

[evilmike]

I just got a dagger of stabbing, which seems to be the vorpal brand for daggers. Is there a special bonus for stabbing with these, or is it just the standard +12.5% on average to damage?

That's all you get from it. Meaning, instead of doing 4 damage, it does 4.5. Not a very good brand on daggers.

[fnwc]

I just got a dagger of stabbing, which seems to be the vorpal brand for daggers. Is there a special bonus for stabbing with these, or is it just the standard +12.5% on average to damage?

That's all you get from it. Meaning, instead of doing 4 damage, it does 4.5. Not a very good brand on daggers.

I think it's one of the worst brands on any weapon. Which is strange, because from a D&D background it seems like it should be great.

[danr]

I just thought that perhaps, since "stabbing" is a skill, it might add to the chance of stabbing in regular melee or something.

Too bad, since this one also has rF+ rElec Int+3.

[evilmike]

I just got a dagger of stabbing, which seems to be the vorpal brand for daggers. Is there a special bonus for stabbing with these, or is it just the standard +12.5% on average to damage?

That's all you get from it. Meaning, instead of doing 4 damage, it does 4.5. Not a very good brand on daggers.

I think it's one of the worst brands on any weapon. Which is strange, because from a D&D background it seems like it should be great.

It used to be much higher, but it was gradually reduced to 12.5% for balance purposes. When the damage bonus was higher, it basically outclassed most of the other weapon brands.

[fnwc]

It used to be much higher, but it was gradually reduced to 12.5% for balance purposes. When the damage bonus was higher, it basically outclassed most of the other weapon brands.

Hmmmm. I wonder if it should be improved slightly, so that it isn't necessarily a non-choice of a brand (except when nothing else is available). I'm not sure what could be done, though.

[KoboldLord]

Hmmmm. I wonder if it should be improved slightly, so that it isn't necessarily a non-choice of a brand (except when nothing else is available). I'm not sure what could be done, though.

It isn't a non-choice. It's a consistently mediocre option. It never excels, but it never completely sucks either. The odd insistence that vorpal brands suck is purely a product of Theory Crawl, where the player gets perfect access to every potentially available item in the game. *By design* this doesn't apply to actual play.

Holy wrath might be The Brand To Have in the post-endgame, but if I was playing a high elf crusader in early Lair, I'd certainly choose to vorpalize a vanilla katana over using a holy wrath falchion dropped by a passing orc. Vorpalizing a good weapon will give me an acceptable weapon now, and it will continue to be an acceptable weapon later. If I try using a crappy weapon now I won't make it to later, and if I waste all my resources on something that will soon be obsolete I'll have to make do with crap at that very moment.

Yeah, if I get a crazy double sword of speed I'm going to use that puppy for sure, but how many thousands of games will I have to play before that happens when the game is still early enough for it to matter?

[danr]

Hmm. Well, I'm just running around in swamp, and a +8,+9 quick blade of stabbing seems to kill things PDQ. Including a couple ice dragons.

[evilmike]

Hmm. Well, I'm just running around in swamp, and a +8,+9 quick blade of stabbing seems to kill things PDQ.

Quick blades also benefit very little from the vorpal brand. It's not a bad weapon by any means, but it's only a little bit better than a normal quick blade.

With weapon brands, you basically want to look at the speed of the weapon and its base damage. Weapons that have a high base damage benefit from brands like flaming, freezing, holy wrath, vorpal, and anything else that increases damage by a percentage. On the other hand, if the weapon has low damage but high speed (as in a quick blade) it's better to go for a brand like electrocution, pain or (in certain cases) distortion. A quick blade of pain is one of the strongest weapons in the game if you have necromancy skill, since the brand adds a flat amount of damage per attack.

[danr]

Oh well, it still works pretty well, whatever people say about base damage etc. Anyhow as a Berserker it was my only option. If I could have added electric, believe me I would. I think a QB of electrocution would rank up there as one of the best weapons in the game.