how does slaying and branding work?

[Tibarius]

The char is attached ...

I got this rapier doing 188.5 in 5 blows and 226 vs those it slays.

Why is slaying only ~36 points more - i thought it is something like damage * 1.5?

If i put on the ring of flames[+11] i had expected 5 blows * 11 fire damage = +55 more damage. But wrong, Inspect tells me it then does 226 vs not fire resistent targets. So the +11 doesn't matter at all, but branding is something like slay flag???

Thanks for any help,
Tibarius

[d_m]

So the general notation is something like this:

Ring of Whatever <+2,+3> [+4] (+5,+6)

+2 and +3 are pvals... if Whatever's pval1 increases STR and pval2 increases DEX, then it gives +2 STR and +3 DEX.

+4 is an AC bonus (so +4 AC)

+5 and +6 are to-hit and damage bonuses, respectively.

So [+11] doesn't correspond to damage, but rather an AC modifier.

Branding is a little weird. For melee weapons branding multiplies the weapon's dice (but not bonuses) by an amount (x3 for normal branding, x2 for weak branding). Slays work the same way with various multipliers.

For missile weapons (e.g. bows) it multiplies the total damage (including modifiers). This means branding is more effective for archery than for melee. Since archery often has a multiplier (x2 for slings, x3 for longbow, x4 for heavy xbow, etc) it's also worth pointing out that what happens is that the branding multiplier gets added to the other multiplier.

So if you shoot arrows of flame (x3 branding) with a longbow (x3) you'll multiply the damage + bonuses by x6.

[Tibarius]

Thanks d_m, i think i got it