Gauntlet of War on Ghoul??

[lansh]

I acquired gauntlets of war on my unarmed ghoul. It has +5 slaying but I lose the +2 base damage from my claws. But isn't base damage for more valuable?

Basically I just want to know if it's a good idea to wear these.

[le_nerd]

Rule of thumb is 2points enchantment=1 base damage. Gauntlets of War have +5 and also +3AC and are thus well worth the trade.

[tasonir]

Gauntlets of war are very good and you should use them, but +2 enchantment isn't worth 1 base damage I don't think.

Base damage is multiplied by fighting/30, so roughly doubled in the late game. Slaying is rolled 1dX -1, so 0, 1 or 2; on average 1. 2:1 ratio might work as long as you have 0 fighting, but with higher fighting, the claw damage scales up. If you have 20+ fighting, I'd say even use a 4:1 ratio. Early game with 5-10 fighting, maybe 3:1.

This is ignoring +accuracy from slaying, but it's generally not that important. Base damage is also multiplied by your strength value so if your strength is decently high, raise the value of claws even more, although I don't recall the formula offhand.

All this said, the main reason you want the gauntlets is because it's +4 ac, and +5 ac with high armor skill. That's huge.

[duvessa]

Rule of thumb is 2points enchantment=1 base damage.

This is a terrible rule of thumb, especially for unarmed combat.

Base damage is multiplied by fighting/30, so roughly doubled in the late game.

No, it's multiplied by a random amount between 1 and 1+Fighting/30. So with 27 fighting, the average damage bonus is +45%. Not even half as much as doubled.

Slaying is rolled 1dX -1, so 0, 1 or 2; on average 1.

No, it's 1d(X+1)-1. The result of +3 slaying is either 0, 1, 2, or 3, which has an average of 1.5, not 1.

If you have 20+ fighting, I'd say even use a 4:1 ratio. Early game with 5-10 fighting, maybe 3:1.

Jesus christ is this post some kind of prank on me? For one point of unarmed base damage to be as good as four points of slaying, you need 27 fighting skill and at least 79 strength.

[tasonir]

You don't need to get so worked up; the simple explanation is that I didn't know the 1/30 fighting bonus was rolled, so I thought it was (roughly) x2, if it's rolled then it's (roughly) x1.5. Thanks for the correction.

Slaying is rolled 1dX -1, so 0, 1 or 2; on average 1.

No, it's 1d(X+1)-1. The result of +3 slaying is either 0, 1, 2, or 3, which has an average of 1.5, not 1.

My example here was for +2 slaying, I suppose I didn't specify that, I thought giving the range of 0-2 would make it clear I was using +2 slaying. The range and average was correct, but yes the formula is missing the +1.

So if fighting is also rolled, it seems like a 2:1 ratio would be fairly close. Obviously it depends on your strength, and so if you have high strength you'll want to favor base damage more. But you said 2:1 is terrible, what would you use?

[svendre]

Yes, wear them.