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[Albedo]

From another thread (http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=34626.90), the question arose as to "What is the combat modifier for artifact weapons?"

Tho' this is not the first time this has been asked, it's worth re-hashing.

Below is a recap of the comments in that thread - skip down to the bottom for "next".

Pretty much agreed that non-weapon material artifacts are just under steel masterworks, but are cool enough to perfer them by far, I think.

I think artifact weapons get a bonus above and beyond the usual material bonus, anyway, so it probably cuts goblins like a chainsaw through butter.

Like buttah!

However, where do you get this from? This observation has been made before, but so far still lacks any evidence other than "seems like it to me".

Personally, I get it from Boatmurdered, when the one prisoner is mauling the entire fortress guard armed with nothing but the artifact amulet he forged a couple of years earlier.

We all know weapon quality improves damage right? (Says so on wiki if you didn't)
Artifacts are of the highest quality
'nuff said

My artifact mace certainly seems to pwn.  But then again, the user already killed a titan and a dragon without it, so she's pretty hardcore anyway.

Well, we all know that Masterpiece beat normal, and I believe artifacts are a set up.

Yeah, I think I've read the wiki.  On the "Weapon" page, Artifact = Masterwork. But, point in fact, anyone can write anything on that - long-standing mistakes are corrected every day. (If you didn't know.) 

"Quality" can refer to many things, both formally and (as is too often the case in the Wiki) informally.  "Highest quality" is both a creative explanation of the concept, and a reference to the value. 

The RAW's imply that the weapon qualities end at Masterwork, and that Artifacts have masterwork modifiers for combat.  Or at least that's as much as analysis has found.

Urban legend and "It sure seems that way" and "That's what everyone says" and "Well, it only makes sense" seem to be the only sources and support for this belief.

Next time you get an artifact weapon, give it to an untrained champion in it's type to spar with.
You'll see how powerful it is by how many injuries you get. My champion with an atrifact steel sword that menaced with spikes of steel and hanging rings of steel instantly decapitated his sparring partner when he started training. It was also his wife.
He wasn't best pleased for awhile.

Lots of bludgeoning injuries when I let my champion with the artefact iron mace in.  3 members of the royal guard and 2 fortress guard are now lying in bed resting injuries (luckily, due to the high number of guards in my fortress (18, ie the recommended number, no soldiers got hurt).  I decided to put him out on patrol.

(dr.spoof & LS - I would hope that an artifact steel weapon would take someone's head off - I would expect a masterwork one would, so these should certainly be no less. Same w/ iron - only slightly less incredibly lethal.  I don't see the point you're trying to make.)


There may well be parts of the code that are hidden that give artifact weapons a huge advantage - but if anyone has found them, they haven't mentioned it.

What we do know is this:

• The modifiers for an artifact appear to default to the modifiers for a masterwork weapon (sim w/ armour).  (This is from a stated analysis of  game "memory")
• That masterwork quality is more than enough by itself to make any weapon plenty deadly, even silver and other "non-weapons-grade material" ones.
• That combat is very random, and any weapon can be lethal, and "observation" of one or a few incidents is not proof of anything.

We also know the modifiers for materials and standard qualities - non-weapon materials have a "50%" multiplier, iron is 100%, and steel has a 133% multiplier, while masterwork is 200%. So a masterwork non-weapons weapon is the same as a standard iron and just under standard steel, 100% net.

And we know some basics of how combat works - "damage" is applied to "block", and if enough gets through, "wounds" are the result.  And applying #3 above, those wounds can easily kill anything once that ball starts rolling. Won't always, but certainly can, and do quite often.  Overkill is hard to verify - once a head or limb is off, it doesn't get cut off several more times with more damage.   Once through any armour (which many "enemies" can't brag about), it's game on.

So, even a non-weapons-material masterwork weapon will do 100% damage, which is approximately 100% more damage than those lousy standard-quality copper picks - and we've all seen those kill stuff, even stuff we never expected.

We also know that any dwarf wielding an artifact weapon is highly skilled, which is deadly by itself, all weapons aside.

Now, we know two more things - 1) that there is a LOT of guessing and rumour and urban legend about Artifact weapons, and 2) that NONE of that is supported by any hard evidence from the game itself, only from other guessing and rumour and urban legend.

So, it's fine to say "My artifact soap battle axe is DA SHIT!!!" - but that doesn't prove it's really any better than a standard iron weapon, 100% modifiers. Doesn't mean it isn't, either.

If anyone has found anything in memory or elsewhere, something concrete from the game code itself (or memory or files or etc), now would be a great time to share that.

[zchris13]

I am fairly sure that the only real way to tell would from the mouth of Toady.  Although a typed answer from his hands would work just as well.

[SirStrange]

I remember that fellow in boatmurdered running amok with his artifact bracelet, but I've always wondered...

Was he actually wielding the bracelet as a weapon, or was he granted superpowers just from wearing it?

Which brings me to another question which is slightly off topic: How do attacks with non-weapons work? I've spent a good deal of time strangling elves in adventure mode with my socks and "whipping" them with my loincloth merely for the mental images it inspires, but I've always wondered if it is actually any different that attacking barehanded. Does anyone know?

[NecroRebel]

Toady said something about this in a thread a little bit ago. I remember being unclear about whether he was referring to the next version or if the information was current, but he explicitly stated that artifacts have a 3x damage/block bonus and so were half again as effective as masterworks of the same material. I'll see if I can't dig the post in question up; I'm fairly certain it was in the Future of the Fortress thread.

Edit: I have found it! The relevant post:

Do we know how artifact weapons and armor, specifically artifact weapons and armor made with strange materials, will interact with the materials system? Will an artifact bone spear be able to pierce normal steel plate, or will it be largely ineffectual? Will artifact weapons and armor acquire item damage? Would an artifact gold hammer get bent or broken when I bashed it on someone's adamantium helmet?

For combat purposes, artifacts are just unusually high quality:<quotes>

Yeah, the current situation is:

Value*10.
Cannot be owned (can be equipped, you might have to do it explicitly though).
Armor deflection roll has *3 roll modifier instead of the masterwork's *2.
Same for melee attack and archery rolls.
It looks like the artifact edges are the maximum edge for the material, which is also what a masterwork gets, so beyond a masterwork you'd just be getting the hit roll modifier.
Things like artifact bone spears will likely be crap against steel, yeah.  We don't have actual magical artifacts yet, and that's what would be required.

[NW_Kohaku]

What's all this about maximum edge, though?  Is there a limit to how much damage threat that a weapon of a given material can get that is not a factor of it's base damage, or is it just double the material's base damage, which is what masterwork would get?

[NecroRebel]

What's all this about maximum edge, though?  Is there a limit to how much damage threat that a weapon of a given material can get that is not a factor of it's base damage, or is it just double the material's base damage, which is what masterwork would get?

That's why I'm not sure whether that information is intended for the current version or the next one. In the current version, the "edge" stuff is meaningless and not taken into account at all; items simply have a damage value and some multipliers for that value. In the next version, weapons and materials apparently don't have damage values or multipliers, instead having stuff like contact surface area, edge sharpness, and other things that actually matter for real-world weapons' effectiveness.

[o_O[WTFace]]

People have pretty much confirmed artifacts get the standard masterwork 2x, but weapon quality also supposedly adds to skill or combat rolls or something like that.  That is/was one of the crossbow issues, because stuff would be getting skill bonuses from both quality Xbows and quality bolts.  Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if artifacts gave a bigger bonus then masterwork, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they didn't.

[The_Rabbit]

Mmm, didn't Toady just say in the Dwarf Talk 7 that a weapon being an artifact didn't give it particular bonuses, but that it eventually would?

...might not be remembering correctly though, it was a long talk.

[Grendus]

I think in the talk he was referring to it making the item functionally different. You still use an artifact sword like an artifact sword, it doesn't let you throw fire. An artifact cabinet can be used to raise a rooms value (hopefully by a lot, though I've seen some artifacts worth less than 3k) or to give happy thoughts from admiring it.

I remember reading on the wiki that weapon quality also effects skill, so a recruit wielding a masterwork steel short sword will be fighting with a higher functional skill than a recruit with a base quality steel short sword. This usually is a moot point, since most players train up their dwarves to legendary, or near, before they let them use anything but wood/silver. However, that may be outdated info, you can never tell with the wiki. However, even at legendary+5 a smith will only produce roughly 1/7 masterworks (15% total) so an artifact weapon is still a great thing, even if it's no different than a masterwork. Bonus if it's made from addy. Then you know your enemies are in for a WORLD of hurt, an artifact addy weapon could one shot a [REDACTED].

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Toady answered this question recently in a forum thread, at least for the upcoming version.

Toady just gave us a further quote on weapon and armor quality, giving the game qualities of an "artifact" in the next version:
Value*10.
Cannot be owned (can be equipped, you might have to do it explicitly though).
Armor deflection roll has *3 roll modifier instead of the masterwork's *2.
Same for melee attack and archery rolls.
It looks like the artifact edges are the maximum edge for the material, which is also what a masterwork gets, so beyond a masterwork you'd just be getting the hit roll modifier.
Things like artifact bone spears will likely be crap against steel, yeah. We don't have actual magical artifacts yet, and that's what would be required.

edit: fuck, beaten >_<

Anyway, yeah, that's the answer for the next version, which probably isn't too different from how it is currently. Artifact weapons are basically "super masterworks" of the material type, but the values of the underlying material aren't changed.

I suspect that the way this'll work out is that artifacts are better, as long as your material is superior, but that it's better to have a better material than an artifact -- i.e., if you're attacking a bronze colossus, any artifact weapon of (material strength > bronze) is ideal, but if your artifact is made of (material strength < bronze), you're better off with a plain steel weapon, and so forth. Conversely, if you're defending against a bronze sword, an artifact bronze, steel, or iron shield would be great, but if your artifact shield is bone, better to use a non-artifact steel shield.

In practical terms this means your steel bar stockpile should be as close as possible to your forges.

The remaining question is what to use against an unarmored opponent. It seems like in such cases, the artifact bone spear might be the best choice, just for the skill bonus.

. Bonus if it's made from addy. Then you know your enemies are in for a WORLD of hurt, an artifact addy weapon could one shot a [REDACTED].

Well, with the exception of artifact hammers. Blunt weapons use mass for damage, and an artifact adamantium hammer won't have any -- it might even be worth it to give your hammerer an adamantium hammer just to neuter him. Otherwise, though, yeah, adamantium weapons that cut or pierce should be able to cut or pierce through any armor like it wasn't there.