DnD3 Attacks

d20 style criticals

So far, I've made three blog posts about the odds of D&D 4^e attacks. Here's one about D&D 3^e attacks.

The main difference between the editions is how critical hits work. In 4^e a critical hit occurs when rolling a natural 20, simply resulting in maximized weapon damage, with an extra die roll for high crit weapons. In 3^e each weapon has its own threat number, and a critical hit results in multiple damage rolls, which includes static bonuses like from Strength.

Let's take a generic level 1 Fighter with a Strength of 16 and see how various weapons perform against an AC range from 14 to 20. Here's an AnyDice program that does it.

function: ROLL:n vs AC:n {
 if ROLL >= THREAT & ROLL + ATTACK >= AC {
  result: [threat d20]
 }
 if ROLL + ATTACK >= AC | ROLL = 20 { result: DAMAGE }
 result: 0
}

function: threat ROLL:n {
 if ROLL + ATTACK >= AC | ROLL = 20 {
  result: CRITICAL d DAMAGE
 }
 result: DAMAGE
}

AC: d{14..20}
STRENGTH: 3
ATTACK: 1 + STRENGTH

DAMAGE: 1d8 + STRENGTH
THREAT: 20
CRITICAL: 3
output [d20 vs AC] named "Battleaxe"

DAMAGE: 1d8 + STRENGTH
THREAT: 19
CRITICAL: 2
output [d20 vs AC] named "Longsword"

DAMAGE: 1d6 + STRENGTH
THREAT: 20
CRITICAL: 4
output [d20 vs AC] named "Pick, heavy"

DAMAGE: 1d6 + STRENGTH
THREAT: 18
CRITICAL: 2
output [d20 vs AC] named "Scimitar"

DAMAGE: 2d4 + STRENGTH * 3/2
THREAT: 18
CRITICAL: 2
output [d20 vs AC] named "Falchion"

DAMAGE: 1d12 + STRENGTH * 3/2
THREAT: 20
CRITICAL: 3
output [d20 vs AC] named "Greataxe"

DAMAGE: 1d10 + STRENGTH * 3/2
THREAT: 19
CRITICAL: 2
output [d20 vs AC] named "Flail, heavy"

DAMAGE: 2d6 + STRENGTH * 3/2
THREAT: 19
CRITICAL: 2
output [d20 vs AC] named "Greatsword"

DAMAGE: 1d10 + STRENGTH * 3/2
THREAT: 20
CRITICAL: 3
output [d20 vs AC] named "Halberd"

DAMAGE: 2d4 + STRENGTH * 3/2
THREAT: 20
CRITICAL: 4
output [d20 vs AC] named "Scythe"

And here are the results, split up in one-handed and two-handed weapons for convenience. I use the at-least display because I think it's most meaningful.

So if you simply want to dish out damage, pick a sword and you can't go wrong.