How Honing Affects Damage
Introduction
In December of 2006, the ward weapon weave was replaced by an update to the Master Blacksmith mobs, allowing you to hone and harden weapons for a cost. http://wotmud.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=115 (http://wotmud.wikia.com/wiki/Update:Mer ... _Immortals!!)
Previous testing for the Equipment Trainer has already established that hardening a weapon increases its base OB by 5.
While it has long been general knowledge that honing increases weapon damage, the precise amount or mechanism has remained unstudied until now. Building on recent research into weapon damage, this study is able to conclude that honing a weapon provides an addition of 2d4 damage, independent of other known damage multipliers.
Method
Procedure
Damage testing and control was carried out according to methods specified in the previous post regarding the effect of Strength on damage, found here:
http://www.wotmudarchives.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2351
In this case, the same 1d2 weapon ('a sharp pickaxe') was used, the low roll helping to reduce the number of hits required.
Test characters/mobs
Saplings were again used, to provide a common mob to highlight the damage bonus that Hunters incur vs Tree-type mobs, and to determine the interaction of this bonus with honing.
Five test characters were employed:
14-Str warrior
14-Str warrior, honed weapon
14-Str hunter, honed weapon
15-Str warrior
15-Str warrior, honed weapon
Results
For each chatacter, 500 hits vs the target mob were recorded, with the exception of the 15-Str honed warrior, for whom 1300 hits were recorded. The results were again very obvious and compelling.
Honing
Compared to the base 1d2 distribution for the 14-Str warrior, his 14-Str honed counterpart generated a curve which can only be described by a 1d2+2d4 distribution, with a range of 3-10 damage.
14-Str warrior
14-Str warrior, honed weapon
Similarly, where the base 15-Str warrior has a base 1d2 distribution plus a small percent chance of additional 1-2 dmg contribution (which is still being studied), his 15-Str honed counterpart generated a curve similar to that of the 14-Str honed warrior, with a small modification due to both the addition and interaction of the additional 1-2 damage, generating a curve which is best described as a (1d2+2d4) + [%chance][1-2].
15-Str warrior
15-Str warrior, honed weapon
Honing and the Hunter damage bonus
Compared to the base 1d2 distribution for the 14-Str honed warrior, his 14-Str honed hunter counterpart generated a curve which can only be described by a 3*(1d2)/2 + 2d4 distribution, with a range of 3-11 damage. Had the hunter bonus been applied to both the base weapon damage and the honed addition, the range would have instead been 4-15, which was not observed.
14-Str warrior, honed weapon
14-Str hunter, honed weapon
Hardening
No additional change in damage was observed after having hardened the weapon, though further testing of this on higher-damage weapons will be undertaken to help eliminate any chance of a small multiplicative factor which might be lost on a low-damage weapon.
Conclusion
Testing strongly indicates that honing a weapon provides a 2d4 additive damage bonus. While other damage bonuses such as Borderguard and Master damage have yet to be tested, it can be seen that the honing damage is added After the Hunter bonus vs Tree-type mobs.
Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcomed.