The World of Avlis

got a low level fighter with a few gold pieces to spend. two swords attract his eye.
one with massive damage 2d6, the other with 2pt slashing damage.
the slashing sword is a good few gold pieces more than the massive damage one.

which one should i buy? which would be of more use in knocking things over?

any advice would be much appreciated.

Well, unless you get criticals on 15-20 the slashing one adds more average damage. (Not considering critical immunities or slashing resistant things.)

I don't think weapons have anything to do with knock down. Though the size category of the weapon is used for disarming an opponent.

Edit: Oh. Killing them. Sorry, woke up ten minutes ago. Then the slashing one is probably a better choice, unless of course you never fight undead and whatever you do fight is resistant to slashing.

knocking things over == killing them.

should have made this clear in my original post. sorry.

Just expanding on what was said. Assuming that you do not have improved critical and that the sword has a critical range of 19-20, you're looking at:

Average of +2.1 slashing damage for the slashing sword.

or

Average of +0.7 damage for the improved critical sword.

If you get improved critical, it still only gets to +1.4 average.

I know my math is probably a little off, but its close enough I think.

This leads to another question that I've always wondered:

Does the 2d6 extra damage for criticals get multiplied by the crit modifier?

Anyone know for sure how the engine handles this?

Nope, it adds to the crit damage after it's been multiplied.

I have to say something here... I know that you are trying to maximize your damage and stretch out the coins your character has so you can get the best that you can the first time. But, all in all, how would your character care about the weapon? How your character might choose might be your deciding factor... call it roleplaying... call it character preference... but my characters often use weapons/gear that is not the best just because it fits their personality better.

Further, I am know to carry some moderate to lesser items around just to "dare to be different" from the crowd... if it looks good and matches my character's personality then I have it carried around and used instead of that "ubber" item.

I guess what I am saying is don't get caught up in the stats and the "I must have the best gear" syndrom. Roleplaying is much more fun.

*shrugs*

He's asking a technical question, not an RP question.

My character would want whatever kicks the most ass in the situation. Sometimes, that means one of the many unusual items I keep around. I mean, really, who uses a sickle, unless it's +4 against undead that aren't slash resistant?

Something to keep in mind for if/when you travel around with a cleric/mage.

Items that have +damage that is the same as the base damage.. Swords + slash, Hammers + blunt, Daggers + pierce.. In a sense, lose that extra property of +damage when enchanted with magic weapon/greater magic weapon. The Spell enchancement increase replaces the +damage from the weapon.

This is not true of weapons that have a +damage that is not of the base damage type.. Ie a dagger with +blunt does not lose the +blunt damage when GMW'ed.

The same applies to weapons with an elemental form of damage and Darkfire/Flame Weapon. If you have a weapon that has +2 fire and someone casts flame weapon on it. The +2 is replaced by the +1d6, not added/stacked. Now if you +2 fire and a person casts a sonic form(using metamagic wand) of flame weapon then the effect does stack, giving +2 fire/+1d6 sonic.